Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brasso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: During her confirmation hearings, Justice Katangi Brown Jackson said her
Speaker 1: experiences as a public defender, a member of the Sentencing Commission,
Speaker 1: and appellate judge, and a trial judge would inform her
Speaker 1: role on the Supreme Court. I was a trial judge,
Speaker 1: and my methodology has developed in that context. I don't
Speaker 1: know how many other justices other than Justice so do
Speaker 1: mayor have that same perspective. But it informs me with
Speaker 1: respect to what I understand to be my proper judicial role. Now,
Speaker 1: some defense lawyers are hoping that Jackson will become a
Speaker 1: voice for criminal defendants unlike her predecessor, and use the
Speaker 1: weight of her experience to form a new majority on
Speaker 1: the court in some criminal cases. An early task will
Speaker 1: come in a case that asks whether judges can punish
Speaker 1: defendants for crimes a jury has acquitted them of. Joining
Speaker 1: me is Ohio State University law professor Douglas Burman. Do
Speaker 1: do you think that Justice Jackson's background will give her
Speaker 1: more gravity toss than a normal junior justice at the
Speaker 1: conference table when it comes to criminal justice issues? Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: Judge Jackson has a really rich history both in the
Speaker 1: work of the judiciary. So you know, he clerked for
Speaker 1: three different judges, you know, two judges and a justice.
Speaker 1: In that in and of itself is exceptional, and I
Speaker 1: think gives her a rich set of perspectives about the
Speaker 1: work of judging, in particularly the kinds of cases that
Speaker 1: work their way through the federal court. You it's quite
Speaker 1: common now, I'm almost I think all but maybe Justice Hagan,
Speaker 1: of the current justices, had experienced as a circuit judge,
Speaker 1: so seeing cases that made their way to Screme Court
Speaker 1: from the appellate stage. But Justice Jackson both clerked the
Speaker 1: District Court, the Circuit Court, and the Supreme Court, and
Speaker 1: then had a pretty extensive period as a district judge,
Speaker 1: then a short period as a circuit judge. And so
Speaker 1: that piece, even apart from her time as a federal
Speaker 1: public defender and serving on the Sentencing Commission, that piece
Speaker 1: already not only distinguishes her from her colleagues, but I
Speaker 1: think particularly gives her a set of insights and perhaps
Speaker 1: an extra bit of confidence in kind of knowing how
Speaker 1: federal courts deal with the range of issues at every level.
Speaker 1: And then the piece that really carries over to the
Speaker 1: criminal justice space that I work in, is that she
Speaker 1: has a background as a federal public defender, one of
Speaker 1: the few justices who in the Court's entire history have
Speaker 1: had a role in that respect, and then also served
Speaker 1: a number of years on the U. S Sentencing Commission
Speaker 1: and so particularly looked at sentencing practice and policy that way.
Speaker 1: And so you've got to add all that up. And
Speaker 1: even though she's the youngest justice, she's in some sense
Speaker 1: the most experience in sort of watching the federal justice
Speaker 1: system function from all these different perspectives. Her predecessor, she's saying,
Speaker 1: just as Stephen Bryer, and everyone knows him as a
Speaker 1: liberal justice, but he wasn't necessarily so liberal in criminal
Speaker 1: defense matters, was he? That's right? I mean, I think
Speaker 1: over the course of you know, a couple decades on
Speaker 1: the court, you could point to, Oh, these were some
Speaker 1: very liberal positions he had on some criminal justice matters.
Speaker 1: And the most obvious one there might be the death penalty,
Speaker 1: where he seemed, especially in his later years, to be
Speaker 1: trying to build an argument that the way the death
Speaker 1: penalty functions our country is unconstitutional. But then you look
Speaker 1: at some other matters sometimes his rulings on Fourth Amendments
Speaker 1: for concesure issues, his rulings on the right to jury
Speaker 1: trials under the Sixth Amendments, some other issues as well.
Speaker 1: He was much more inclined to be leaning towards the prosecution,
Speaker 1: or at least in some sense was maybe valuably unpredictable,
Speaker 1: very eager to kind of hear the pros and cons.
Speaker 1: But but often that was kind of styled in the
Speaker 1: context of being a very pragmatic justice who was very
Speaker 1: concerned about whether and how any limits on law enforcement
Speaker 1: and he limits on prosecutors might function to undermine some
Speaker 1: broader goals in the criminal justice system. And so in
Speaker 1: many respects, every justice is open minded to these issues.
Speaker 1: But I think definitely Justice Prior, especially compared more recently
Speaker 1: to Justice sodomy Or, was less likely to be critical
Speaker 1: or at least questioning of a lot of assertions that
Speaker 1: you couldn't limit the police this way or you couldn't
Speaker 1: restrict trial rights that way without having a found impact
Speaker 1: on the operation of the criminal justice system. Tell us
Speaker 1: about the case of Dante McClinton, a case of the
Speaker 1: justices are considering whether or not they'll take so this
Speaker 1: case involved the young man who got involved with a
Speaker 1: number of other young men and they robbed a pharmacy. Sadly,
Speaker 1: in the course of doing so, garrid and awful lot
Speaker 1: of people there, but didn't directly hurt anybody and only
Speaker 1: were able to get away with a few hundred dollars. Then,
Speaker 1: in the course of dividing up the loot that they
Speaker 1: got and kind of fighting over it, seems how the
Speaker 1: robbery didn't go well, one of the robbers involved got
Speaker 1: shot and shot and killed. And the prosecution's claim was
Speaker 1: that Mr McClinton was the shooter and was guilty of
Speaker 1: speaking to try to rob his cohort of his part
Speaker 1: of the loot, and when he couldn't get it, he
Speaker 1: then shot this individual ultimately, and this is a key
Speaker 1: part of the story. The jury didn't agree with that theory,
Speaker 1: and there was evidence presented a trial that suggested somebody
Speaker 1: else may have done that, and the details were unclear.
Speaker 1: What was clear is this Hurry was not convinced was
Speaker 1: not certain that Mr McClinton should be held accountable because
Speaker 1: they acquitted him on the charges at trial that related
Speaker 1: to the other young man being shot and killed. When
Speaker 1: the case got to sentence thing. However, the government said, hey, judge,
Speaker 1: remember all that evidence he put forward, you know, arguing
Speaker 1: that he was guilty of killing his co conspirator. Well,
Speaker 1: even though the jury acquitted on those counts, we still
Speaker 1: think the evidence should convince you by a preponderance the evidence,
Speaker 1: which is typically the standard applied at sentencing as opposed
Speaker 1: to the beyond a reasonable doubt standard applied at trial.
Speaker 1: We think you should still be convinced that he was
Speaker 1: responsible for that other young man's death. And so when
Speaker 1: you sentenced him for the robbery that he was convicted of,
Speaker 1: consider also the fact that he is responsible for causing
Speaker 1: this death, that he really is a murderer, even though
Speaker 1: the jury acquitted him on that. So the judge sentenced
Speaker 1: him to twenty years as opposed to the about five
Speaker 1: years he would have gotten if he'd been sentenced just
Speaker 1: for the robbery he was actually convicted of. That's pretty
Speaker 1: much right. And again, exactly what he would have gotten
Speaker 1: for just the robbery could be debated. And this is
Speaker 1: where things get complicated because fundamentally there could be other
Speaker 1: aggravating factors that judge might rely on. But the judge said,
Speaker 1: I think you were responsible for this death. I think
Speaker 1: because of that, I have to increase your guideline range,
Speaker 1: because the guideline range was even in the thirty year
Speaker 1: rain and the judge decided to only I put that
Speaker 1: in air quote give twenty and the rich lo hung
Speaker 1: detailed backstory is there's a case from almost twenty five
Speaker 1: years ago now with the Supreme Court said a judge
Speaker 1: is consideration of evidence, even related to counts on which
Speaker 1: a defendant has been acquitted, doesn't violate to process. And
Speaker 1: that older decision came before some more recent rulings about
Speaker 1: the right to jury trial and the reach of the
Speaker 1: sixth Amendment. And so there's been lots of complaints by
Speaker 1: by me and lots of other people saying we don't
Speaker 1: think that's good precedent anymore, and the McClinton cases being
Speaker 1: pressed as an opportunity for the court to reconsider that
Speaker 1: older precedent. Does this come up often? I would think
Speaker 1: it doesn't. However, since there's a term for this acquitted
Speaker 1: conduct issue, I guess it does. You know, again, it
Speaker 1: depends on how you wanted to fine office. So given
Speaker 1: the fact that roughly speaking, nineteen out of twenty cases
Speaker 1: in the federal system are resolved by please then you know,
Speaker 1: in the vast majority of cases this can't come up
Speaker 1: because the case has been resolved by a plea and
Speaker 1: the terms of sentencing are defined by what's been admitted
Speaker 1: as part of the police But in a lot of
Speaker 1: cases they go to trial, it's quite common that there's
Speaker 1: multiple counts and that the defendant isn't convicted on all
Speaker 1: the multiple accounts. And there can actually be different variations
Speaker 1: on this theme. One variation that's fairly high profile, that's
Speaker 1: not exactly the same issue, but but I made reference
Speaker 1: to it, and some of my writings about these matters
Speaker 1: is the Elippus Holmes. There a Noose trial where there
Speaker 1: were multiple fraud counts brought to the jury. She was
Speaker 1: convicted on a few of them, and then there was
Speaker 1: a hung jury on some of the others, and those
Speaker 1: have now been dismissed because the prosecution said, we don't
Speaker 1: want to bother We've got enough convictions here. We're not
Speaker 1: going to try to retry those those hung counts. But
Speaker 1: one of the reasons the prosecutor feels comfortable doing that
Speaker 1: is under these doctrines there and completely entitled to they
Speaker 1: might even think they're obliged to put forward that evidence
Speaker 1: to the judges sentences. A judge still think that the
Speaker 1: amount of loss or the other aggravating factors under those
Speaker 1: counts that led to a hung jury, we still think
Speaker 1: we proved them close enough for government work, so to speak,
Speaker 1: and that should be part of your calculations as to
Speaker 1: what kind of sentence you should be facing. And there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of other examples like this too. What what
Speaker 1: often very common in the drug settings, which are part
Speaker 1: and parts of about bill at least a quarter is
Speaker 1: not more of the federal cases that get brought, is
Speaker 1: the government will charge the defendant with multiple accounts of
Speaker 1: drug dealing or being part of a broader conspiracy in
Speaker 1: which there was lots and lots of dealing going on.
Speaker 1: If the case goes to trial, again, that's the exception.
Speaker 1: But if the case goes to trial, it's not at
Speaker 1: all uncommon that a jury will reach a mixed verdict. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: we think the defendant was definitely involved in these five
Speaker 1: transactions where they were personally doing the sales. But you
Speaker 1: say he's also part of these twenty other transactions and
Speaker 1: he says he wasn't. We have a doubt about that
Speaker 1: we're going to quit on those other charges. And then
Speaker 1: still the prosecution can say, they often say in those
Speaker 1: kinds of cases, well, using the preponderance of evidence standard judge,
Speaker 1: we think we put enough evidence the show he was
Speaker 1: connected to these other twenty sales, and so you should
Speaker 1: use the amount of drugs that were involved not just
Speaker 1: in these sales that he was convicted of, but all
Speaker 1: these other sales that we think we have evidence to
Speaker 1: connect into, that all should be part of the guideline
Speaker 1: calculation that drives up the sentence. And that's basically the
Speaker 1: fact pattern that led to a case about ten years ago,
Speaker 1: really the same basic issue where the late Justice Scalia
Speaker 1: and Justice Ginsburg joined with Justice Thomas in the sending
Speaker 1: from the denial of Sirt. There was a case called Jones,
Speaker 1: where again it was this drug setting where the prosecution
Speaker 1: claimed the series of defendants were involved in all sorts
Speaker 1: of drug dealings. The jury came back with a very
Speaker 1: mixed and limited verdict, and then the prosecution went back
Speaker 1: to the judge of sentencing and said all the drug
Speaker 1: dealing we are led should be considered for deciding what
Speaker 1: the guideline ranges and the judge concluded at sentencing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm convinced that that's more likely than not,
Speaker 1: and so I've got to drive up the guideline sentencing range,
Speaker 1: which is often, you know, tethered to these quantifiable factors
Speaker 1: like how much drugs are involved or how much loss
Speaker 1: is involved. And that's why this can become not just
Speaker 1: common in the cases that go to trial, but have
Speaker 1: such significant impacts in the length of sentence being recommended
Speaker 1: by the guidelines and the amount of prison time ultimately
Speaker 1: given by judge in that case. In case they needed
Speaker 1: one more vote to take the case, why do you
Speaker 1: think they didn't have the vote of Justice soda Mayor
Speaker 1: or Justice Kagan. Well, thanks for quewing that up, because
Speaker 1: this gets back to our earlier points about Justice Brier
Speaker 1: has been consistently concerned about extending jury trial rights that
Speaker 1: would limit in some respect how judges used their discretion
Speaker 1: as sentences, and so my read on that was always
Speaker 1: the Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, even though they might be
Speaker 1: inclined to vote with the defendant in the case like that,
Speaker 1: we're quite concerned about what Justice Brier might think, and
Speaker 1: even was concerned that maybe Justice Brier would convince are
Speaker 1: members of the Court to not want to limit the
Speaker 1: use of acquitted conduct once the case actually got taken up.
Speaker 1: So their instinct maybe was, let's just let this issue
Speaker 1: percolates the more and hope, you know, to get addressed
Speaker 1: some other way. You know. Among the things that's interesting
Speaker 1: on this particular topic is there have been both congressional
Speaker 1: bills to rewrite the sentencing rules in statute to say
Speaker 1: that judges shouldn't consider this kind of acquitted conducts And
Speaker 1: just recently, the newly constituted U S Sentencing Commission has
Speaker 1: indicated that one of their possible priorities for the coming
Speaker 1: year would be to speak to this issue as well.
Speaker 1: And so I think there's an argument to be made
Speaker 1: or more accurately, this is what the Supreme Court is
Speaker 1: likely going to be struggling with, even if they think
Speaker 1: this is a problematic practice. She should we be addressing
Speaker 1: this through broad constitutional rules or is this the kind
Speaker 1: of matter that it makes more sense to envision Congress
Speaker 1: and the Sentencing Commission to dress in the ways that
Speaker 1: they're arguably more able to craft nuanced rules to deal with.
Speaker 1: So you need the votes of for justices to take
Speaker 1: the case. Let's say you have Clarence Thomas because he
Speaker 1: was in dissent on the last one. Let's big. You
Speaker 1: never know how these things go right exactly, and so
Speaker 1: you might have Justice Jackson and Justices Soda, Mayor and Kagan. Maybe,
Speaker 1: I actually think, although again this gets to, you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of inside baseball speculations. Justice Gorset has actually
Speaker 1: been one of the most vocal advocates for jury trial rights,
Speaker 1: kind of stepping into the shoes of Justice Scalia, who
Speaker 1: was one of the most vocal ones. So I think
Speaker 1: Justice Corsets might be a fourth vote, maybe a fifth vote,
Speaker 1: depending on how all this comes together. In addition, and
Speaker 1: I think not to be overlooked, Justice Kavanaugh has actually
Speaker 1: written when he was a DC circuit to say that
Speaker 1: he thinks this is a problem and that the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court ought to take it up to kind of clarify things.
Speaker 1: Although that's sometimes easier to say when you're a circuit
Speaker 1: you're telling what other than when you're a justice yourself.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think he's another possible vote. And last,
Speaker 1: but absolutely not least, Chief Justice Roberts also has been
Speaker 1: relatively quiet but not disengaged justice with respect to some
Speaker 1: of these jury trial right issues. And so I think
Speaker 1: there's reasons to speculate there could be ample votes. But
Speaker 1: I also think there's a way one could say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know what, Now it looks like Congress is
Speaker 1: interested in maybe addressing this. Now it looks like the
Speaker 1: centen In Commission is interested in addressing this. If we
Speaker 1: jump in, that will disrupt that process, or at least
Speaker 1: we're worried maybe we can't craft a rule as a
Speaker 1: matter of constitutional law that will be as nuanced and
Speaker 1: helpful as the development of a rule through some other process,
Speaker 1: legislative or commission based. It's never easy to figure out
Speaker 1: whether or not the court is going to take a case,
Speaker 1: is it? Thanks so much, Doug? That's Ohio State University
Speaker 1: law professor Douglas Berman. Twenty million, million, million, You get
Speaker 1: a million, You got hunter, a million, You got a
Speaker 1: famili On his Info War show, Alex Jones mocked the
Speaker 1: nearly one billion dollar jury verdict against him for spreading
Speaker 1: the myth that the deadliest school shooting in US history
Speaker 1: never happened, saying he could keep the Sandy Hook families
Speaker 1: in court for years. People actually they're getting money. Getting
Speaker 1: the verdict is only the first hurdle in a long
Speaker 1: legal process for the families, one complicated by the fact
Speaker 1: that Jones company, Free Speed Systems, has filed for bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: Joining me is bankruptcy attorney Nicholas Kroft a Fox Rothschild.
Speaker 1: This verdict n five million and then another fifty million
Speaker 1: in Texas. How often are these huge verdicts collected? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's tough when you have a bankruptcy case
Speaker 1: intervening in particularly here we have a bankrupcy case that
Speaker 1: was filed kind of strategically before these judgments were entered.
Speaker 1: When you have a billion dollar judgment, it's pretty tough
Speaker 1: to collect on it. And certainly there's a lot of
Speaker 1: motivation ox Jones his part to come up with as
Speaker 1: many maneuverings in court as possible, you know, appropriate or
Speaker 1: not to delay payment on these debts, and these makeups
Speaker 1: to cases are certainly kind of part of that strategy
Speaker 1: to prolong payment and to at least come up with
Speaker 1: a narrative that Free Speech System doesn't have the money
Speaker 1: for it. He's personally liable for the damages if he
Speaker 1: doesn't file for personal bankruptcy, and he claims he has
Speaker 1: less than two million to his name. If he doesn't
Speaker 1: file for personal bankruptcy, can the plaintiffs continue to go
Speaker 1: after him, you know, chase down his assets, go after
Speaker 1: his wages. Yeah, they'll be able to chase him to
Speaker 1: the ends of the earth if they want to. It's
Speaker 1: not kind of the typical judgment that you'd see in
Speaker 1: a torque case where someone is injured incurring medical bills,
Speaker 1: hospital bills that need to get paid. With this judgment,
Speaker 1: you know, there is a little bit more flexibility on
Speaker 1: the plaintiffs part to sit around and wait for Alex
Speaker 1: Jones to start coming up with the money. But again,
Speaker 1: Alex Jon's is going to be motivated to continue trying
Speaker 1: to come up with it's legal fictions that suggests that
Speaker 1: he has no money to pay a judgment. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about the bankruptcy proceedings at his company, Free Speech Systems.
Speaker 1: Is in what stage are they in the bankruptcy proceedings?
Speaker 1: You know, they've they've kind of come to an interesting stage,
Speaker 1: particularly for sub chapter five, And if you don't mind
Speaker 1: them kind of quickly go into just for context, what
Speaker 1: sub chapter five is so so in Congress enacted this
Speaker 1: new sub chapter to Chapter eleven. Chapter eleven's what we're
Speaker 1: all familiar with as a business bankruptcy that's reorganized. What
Speaker 1: has happened over the years is Chapter eleven has become
Speaker 1: very expensive and very time consuming for small mom and
Speaker 1: pop businesses and small mom and pop business owners. So
Speaker 1: what Congress came up with was sub Chapter five, which
Speaker 1: created this kind of expedited proceeding for mom and pop
Speaker 1: businesses to quickly move through something really similar to a
Speaker 1: Chapter eleven but within only a couple of months. And
Speaker 1: the way that Congress came up with that was they
Speaker 1: eliminated some of the oversight that you would typically see
Speaker 1: in the Chapter eleven case. A big one is the
Speaker 1: Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which is this body that kind
Speaker 1: of solves the collective action problem of a bunch of
Speaker 1: small unsecured creditors. They get to help supervise the case
Speaker 1: and appear in the case and and monitor the debtic
Speaker 1: rout it. That's been eliminated in sub Chapter five and
Speaker 1: replaced with a sub Chapter five trustee that has very
Speaker 1: limited oversight roles at the outset, just really to kind
Speaker 1: of help shepherd the plan along to confirmation, and so
Speaker 1: alex Jones used sub Chapter five to file Free Speech
Speaker 1: Systems bankruptcy and that eliminated the oversight of, you know,
Speaker 1: a creditors committee which would probably be populated by these
Speaker 1: victims because they have significant At the time, they had
Speaker 1: significant contingent judgments. And the timing of when alex Jones
Speaker 1: filed Free Speech Systems bankruptcy case is really important. He
Speaker 1: did it before the judgments were entered. Now, again, this
Speaker 1: is really only a provision of the Bankrupty Code intended
Speaker 1: for small mom and pop businesses. But what we've learned
Speaker 1: is Free Speech Systems generates a significant amount of revenue annually.
Speaker 1: So the way that he was able to sneak into
Speaker 1: sub Chapter five was one these massive judgments hadn't been
Speaker 1: entered yet, so those didn't count against him for the
Speaker 1: debt cap that Congress placed on following some Chapter five bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: You can only have a company that has seven point
Speaker 1: five million dollars worth of debt that files. Obviously, these
Speaker 1: judgments were much more significant, but they hadn't been entered yet.
Speaker 1: And the other kind of machination that alex Jones had
Speaker 1: worked out along the way is there's this other n
Speaker 1: p p QPR that he owns, and essentially what p
Speaker 1: QPR does is acts as a middleman between Alex Jones's
Speaker 1: podcasting company, free Speech Systems, and the companies from which
Speaker 1: Free Speech Systems buys all the kind of supplements that
Speaker 1: they sell on the Alex Jones and Worse podcast That
Speaker 1: is a tremendous source of their revenue. Now, it's pretty
Speaker 1: contrived what Free Speech Systems alleged to have occurred between
Speaker 1: p QPR in itself, but apparently p QPR, without their
Speaker 1: middle manning, and Free Speech Systems wracked up a significant
Speaker 1: amount of debt for these middle manning services. And so
Speaker 1: just before Free Speech Systems filed bankruptcy, it entered into
Speaker 1: a secured loan with p QPR in the millions of
Speaker 1: dollars range. And what Free Speech Systems claims is well,
Speaker 1: this was a way to create a repayment plan to
Speaker 1: this other entity that's been doing services for us. The
Speaker 1: contrived part of it looks like it was created to
Speaker 1: at least form an argument that Hay, free Speech Systems
Speaker 1: is insolvent and judgment proof the debt between p QPR
Speaker 1: and Free Speech Systems. These affiliate entities is not counted
Speaker 1: towards the debt limit. So this is how a company
Speaker 1: with a lot of debt and a lot of revenue
Speaker 1: was able to sneak in to this new provision of
Speaker 1: the bankruptcy code that doesn't automatically have the same kind
Speaker 1: of oversight systems in place that a regular Chapter eleven
Speaker 1: case would have. The Sandy Hook families have intervened in
Speaker 1: the bankruptcy case. They accused Jones of burdening his company,
Speaker 1: Free Speech Systems with fifty four million dollars in concocted debt.
Speaker 1: When will those claims be settled? Well, part of the
Speaker 1: early litigation of the bankruptcy case was the victim saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this debt with PQPR is concocted, and it's going to
Speaker 1: form the basis of an argument that Free Speech Systems
Speaker 1: is insolvent and judgment proof. So the victims said to
Speaker 1: the bankruptcy court, look, you know they filed their schedules
Speaker 1: and their financial disclosures free Speech Systems dead, indicating these
Speaker 1: debts were legitimate. The only person in charge of confirming
Speaker 1: weather their legitimate is Alex Jones and his cronies who
Speaker 1: are running this business. We don't trust that. Please appoint
Speaker 1: a committee in this case to look into this, and
Speaker 1: the court kind of took a middle ground approach. Instead
Speaker 1: of appointing a committee, The court said, what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do if I already have a sub chapter of five
Speaker 1: trustee who is a disinterested person, I'm going to expand
Speaker 1: the scope of her and I'm going to have her
Speaker 1: investigate whether or not these debts actually are legitimate. And
Speaker 1: so the debtors are going to have to respond to
Speaker 1: document request the trustee has issued. The bankruptcy court has
Speaker 1: kind of pumped the brakes on moving the bankruptcy process forward,
Speaker 1: so this independent and kind of unusual investigation can take place.
Speaker 1: Because the bankruptcy court seriously doubt of the legitimacy of
Speaker 1: those debts, could the bankruptcy court eventually order liquidation of
Speaker 1: Jones's business? I don't think the bankruptcy court could or
Speaker 1: would necessarily order a liquidation. But the position that the
Speaker 1: debtor finds himself and now is a little difficult because
Speaker 1: we now have an independent investigation into the legitimacy of
Speaker 1: this major secured debt, and if the investigation determines that
Speaker 1: this debt is not legitimate. The gambit that seems to
Speaker 1: have motivated this bankruptcy filing in the first place of
Speaker 1: an otherwise healthy company before the judgments were entered kind
Speaker 1: of evaporates, and then you're left with a debtor under
Speaker 1: bankruptcy court supervision that is required to file a plan
Speaker 1: that pays creditors in some way, at least with revenue
Speaker 1: over the next five years. And you don't have this
Speaker 1: kind of manufactured debt to serve as an argument that
Speaker 1: the only entity that can get paid is an Alex
Speaker 1: Jones affiliate. But debtor would then have to contend with
Speaker 1: the fact that it's able to and obligated to pay
Speaker 1: these judgments, at least in part. The interesting problem for
Speaker 1: Free speech Systems is its revenue is based on Alex
Speaker 1: Jones podcasting, and nobody can force Alex Jones to continue
Speaker 1: podcasting for free speech systems. So one of the significant
Speaker 1: points of leverage the debtor has is if Alex Jones says, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not podcasting for Free Speech Systems anymore, you can
Speaker 1: have the liquidation value of the company, which is probably
Speaker 1: not going to be significant since they don't really have
Speaker 1: significant assets. Could he then podcast for a different company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he could. I think that there would be significant arguments
Speaker 1: that this company would essentially end up being an alter
Speaker 1: ego of free speech systems. But the problem is that
Speaker 1: just creates more litigation, more delay, and more time investigating
Speaker 1: this kind of web of companies that Alex Jones has
Speaker 1: built up. There's a separate question that you also raised
Speaker 1: about his own personal liability if he's continuing to generate
Speaker 1: income that might be a source of collection against him personally.
Speaker 1: One thing is sure a lot more litigation ahead. Thanks Nick.
Speaker 1: That's Nicholas cow Rop a Fox roth Child, and that's
Speaker 1: it for the edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember
Speaker 1: you can always get the latest legal news by listening
Speaker 1: to our Bloomberg Law podcast wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm June Grasso, and you're listening to Bloomberg