Alex Emric Jones, et al. v. Erica Lafferty, et al.

American courts possess an inherent supervisory authority over their proceedings. They exercise that authority through orders and, if necessary, sanctions including civil or criminal contempt. They, however, do not possess unlimited authority as United States Constitution places limits on the exercise of their inherent supervisory authority. In this case, a Connecticut trial court sanctioned the Petitioners for extrajudicial statements made by Alex Jones – one of the petitioners and the founder of the others. Despite acknowledging that Jones’ extrajudicial statements – made in the course of a television and radio broadcast – would be entitled to constitutional protection if he were not a litigant, the Connecticut Supreme Court altered this Court’s incitement and true threats exceptions to the First Amendment to functionally create an entirely new First Amendment exception that categorically applies to litigants – simply because they are litigants. The questions presented are:

1. Whether a litigant’s extra-judicial statements can be sanctioned when the First Amendment otherwise protects his speech and where there was no order providing prior notice of what speech was sanctionable?

2. Whether a trial court’s warning of the possibility of imposing the same criminal sanctions on a litigant for an unrelated matter is sufficient notice for a subsequent matter under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause?