Where Alex Jones goes, weirdness usually follows. A sequence that emerged during his cross-examination in a Texas courtroom on Wednesday was a perfect example for legal observers and laymen alike.
Mr. Jones was testifying in a trial that will determine how much he must pay the parents of a child killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. He had already lost the case by default after failing to produce documents and witnesses testimony related to his spreading conspiracy theories about the shooting.
During cross-examination, the parents’ lawyer, Mark Bankston, delivered a surprise: Twelve days earlier, Mr. Jones’ lawyers had sent the plaintiffs data from his iPhone, including two years’ worth of text messages.
The revelation led Mr Bankston to suggest Mr Jones had perjured himself in previous depositions. It also raised questions about exactly how phone data was shared.
Here’s what legal experts thought about the moment Mr Jones was confronted with his phone details.
Attorney Mark Bankston told #AlexJones that his attorney messed up and sent him the whole story on Jones’ cell phone. “Do you know that your lawyers messed up and sent me your entire text message history from your cell phone 12 days ago?” Bankston asked. “Do you know what proper perjury is?” pic.twitter.com/IfIiP5UTIg
— Law&Crime Network (@LawCrimeNetwork) August 3, 2022
Alex Jones looked surprised, but was it really unusual?
Yes
“It’s wild,” said Ellen Jaroszewski, distinguished professor of legal ethics at Hofstra University. “It’s really wild. It’s a wild situation in a wild case with a wild man.
The exchange was eye-opening for several reasons. Information related to such litigation is usually disclosed before trial, in a process called discovery.
Bruce Green, a law professor at Fordham, where he directs a center on law and ethics, said Mr. Bankston, as part of that process, almost certainly requested text messages and emails sent by Mr. Jones concerning to Sandy Hook.
Even if Mr. Jones’s lawyers wanted to keep some of his communications privileged, they would have to provide a list of those documents to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, who could then try to get access to the documents by going to the judge.
Stephen Good, a professor at the University of Texas Law School who specializes in trial and appellate law, said in an interview that if what Mr. Bankston said Wednesday was accurate and that Mr. Jones’ lawyers had not acted after learned what they had done, “I will find it stunning.”
Why should we believe what the parents’ lawyer says?
Mr Green said Mr Bankston was almost certainly telling the truth about how he came into possession of the phone records for two reasons. First, Mr. Jones’s lawyers did not challenge his presentation in court, which allowed the tapes to be admitted into evidence. Second, it would be a disciplinary offense for Mr Bankston to lie to the judge.
In most states, ethics rules require plaintiffs’ attorneys to notify their defense colleagues of inadvertent disclosures. However, Texas has no such rule. Still, Mr. Bankston told the court on Wednesday that he had informed Mr. Jones’ team of the disclosure, saying that “when they were informed,” the lawyers “took no steps to identify him as privileged or to protect him in some way. “
Professor Goode said that if Mr Bankston’s description was accurate, he had enabled Mr Jones’s lawyer to assert privilege over the material in a more generous way than required.
On Thursday, Mr. Jones’s lawyer, F. Andino Reynal, filed an emergency motion asking a judge to order Mr. Bankston to return all hard copies of documents made from cellphone records, to seal those already are entered into evidence, and to enable his team to provide substitute copies of the relevant evidence.
At a hearing on the motion, Mr. Raynal also called for a mistrial based on Mr. Bankston’s use of the cell phone recordings. He said that after the documents were inadvertently passed on, he asked Mr Bankston to ignore the link he had been sent and expected the request to be honoured.
Mr Bankston responded by saying the words “please disregard” created “no legal obligation on me”, adding that he was under no obligation not to review the documents. He called the proposal “frivolous.” (He also clarified that the link to the records was sent by Mr Reynal’s legal assistant.)
The judge, Maya Guerra Gamble, denied the motion for a mistrial and the motion.
Did Mr. Jones commit perjury? If so, is he likely to suffer consequences?
Experts said it was unclear whether Jones would be charged with perjury. Under Texas law, a person can be charged with perjury, a felony, if they make a false statement under oath or if, while under oath, they swear to the truth of a statement previously made with a clear understanding of the statement and intent to deceive . The person can be charged with aggravated perjury, a felony, if the false statement was made in connection with an official proceeding and could affect the outcome of the case.
If investigators from the Travis County District Attorney’s Office investigate the case and find that Mr. Jones committed perjury, he could be charged with a felony. The office did not respond to a request for comment.
“At one point the judge actually told Jones that you believe everything that comes out of your mouth the moment you say it,” Professor Goode said. “I don’t know what he believes or doesn’t believe, so I have no idea if Travis County prosecutors would have any interest in prosecuting or if they could actually crack a case.”
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