The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected far right media figure Alex Jones’s final appeal in the Sandy Hook defamation cases, leaving intact roughly $1.4 billion in judgments owed to the families of victims of the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The order was issued without comment, ending Jones’s last chance to challenge his liability for years of false claims that the massacre was staged.
Jones and his lawyers had filed a petition for review last week, arguing that his defamatory statements were part of what he described as “reporting and debate” on the tragedy. He claimed his words had been “lifted out of context” and that he was being subjected to a “financial death penalty by fiat.” In his filing, he warned that if the Supreme Court declined to hear his case, “all journalists will realize that they could be found liable for huge defamation awards, especially in ideologically divergent geographic regions… and therefore refrain from publishing for fear of being hauled into court” for a “‘trial by sanction’ in which the First Amendment is superfluous.”
The justices declined to consider those arguments, dismissing the petition without seeking a response from the Sandy Hook families or their attorneys. The decision leaves intact judgments entered by courts in Connecticut and Texas, where Jones was found liable for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress for years of false statements accusing grieving parents of faking their children’s deaths as part of a government conspiracy to promote gun control.
Jones’s statements—repeated across his Infowars broadcasts and online platforms—falsely claimed that the 2012 shooting, which killed 20 children and six educators, was a hoax and that the parents of the victims were “crisis actors.” Over the following years, families were stalked, harassed, and threatened by believers of Jones’s conspiracy theories. Several testified during trials that they were forced to move homes repeatedly and received letters from strangers who claimed to have desecrated their children’s graves.
Courts in Connecticut and Texas determined that Jones’s conduct went far beyond the protections of the First Amendment. In Connecticut, a judge issued a rare default judgment against him in 2021 after finding he had repeatedly defied court orders and refused to turn over evidence. The case proceeded directly to a jury to decide damages. In 2022, jurors awarded $964 million to the families, and the judge later added $473 million in punitive damages, bringing the total to approximately $1.4 billion. A separate Texas jury awarded $49 million to another family in a related case.
During the trials, the families’ attorneys demonstrated the scope of the emotional and personal damage caused by Jones’s lies. Jurors heard testimony from parents who described years of terror, including people appearing at their homes, filming them, or sending death threats referencing their murdered children.
In his Supreme Court petition, Jones claimed that the judgments represented an existential threat to press freedom. He argued that he was simply engaging in commentary and that journalists everywhere should fear being “found liable for huge defamation awards.” His filing also complained about the potential sale of his company, Free Speech Systems, and the Infowars brand, suggesting it could even be bought by “ideological nemesis” The Onion, a satirical publication that had previously mocked him.
The Court’s rejection of his request, issued without explanation, effectively affirms the findings of the lower courts and clears the way for enforcement of the judgments.
After the decision, Christopher Mattei, a lawyer representing the Sandy Hook families, praised the outcome. “The Supreme Court properly rejected Jones’s latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused,” Mattei said. “We look forward to enforcing the jury’s historic verdict and making Jones and Infowars pay for what they have done.”
With no further legal recourse, Jones now faces an uphill battle to satisfy the enormous damages. He filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, claiming that “the plaintiffs have no possible hope of collecting” the full amount. Courts in Texas have since ordered the liquidation of Infowars assets under a state-appointed receiver.
An earlier attempt to auction Infowars’s assets was scrapped after a bankruptcy judge found flaws in the process. The satirical news outlet The Onion had briefly emerged as the winning bidder, but the sale was voided, and the liquidation process has since shifted to a Texas state court.
Jones is appealing the receiver’s appointment but continues to broadcast daily. On his show Tuesday, he dismissed the Supreme Court’s decision as politically motivated. “I said no, they will not do it because of politics,” he said. He complained that the case was “all about torturing me. It’s all about harassing me. It’s about harassing my family. It’s about getting me off the air.”
He also mocked claims that he could afford to pay the damages, saying his studio equipment—including “five-year-old cameras”—was worth only about $304,000. His lawyers have told the courts that Infowars and Free Speech Systems’ remaining assets are limited, while his creditors and the families’ attorneys argue he has shifted funds to conceal wealth.
The Court’s decision to deny review leaves standing the jury’s findings that Jones’s deliberate lies caused measurable harm to private individuals. The ruling reaffirms that defamation laws do not limit free expression but provide redress when speech inflicts serious injury.
While Jones continues to portray himself as a victim of censorship, the families and their attorneys maintain that the outcome is about accountability, not ideology. “The Supreme Court properly rejected Jones’s latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused,” Mattei said. “We look forward to enforcing the jury’s historic verdict and making Jones and Infowars pay for what they have done.”
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