Global warming doomsayer Michael Mann of Penn State University has won his defamation lawsuit against critics Mark Steyn and Rand Simburg, proving that conservatives cannot get fair verdicts from District of Columbia juries. This is a huge, structural problem for the federal judiciary, because D.C. courts have jurisdiction over many actions regarding the federal government. Bias to the point of hatred of Republicans and conservatives by D.C. juries has made those courts a part of the Democrats’ armory.

If Republicans ever again get the Oval Office and majorities in both Houses of Congress, they must redefine the jurisdiction of lower courts so that actions involving the federal government rotate among all judicial districts. Democrats will fight this measure with a Senate filibuster, but Republicans can argue that the juries must “look like America.” 

I am deeply worried for Mark’s health, as he has been very ill, and this massive setback might lead to worse health outcomes.

I rely on retired super-lawyer John Hinderaker, who attended some of the trial, on the question of the unjustness of the verdict: 

The verdict was disappointing to those of us who followed the case and thought that Michael Mann presented a pathetically inadequate case. The jury actually agreed: it found that the defendants had defamed Mann, but awarded only a token $1 in damages, since Mann had failed to prove any. But it found that both Simberg and Steyn acted with actual malice–they didn’t actually believe what they said about Mann–and awarded punitive damages in the amount of $1,000 against Simberg, and $1 million against Steyn.

In a sane world, this case never would have gone to the jury. The legal standard is actual malice, which means the defendants must have thought, subjectively, that what they said wasn’t likely true. In this case, there was no evidence whatever that Steyn and Simberg didn’t sincerely believe that what they said was true. Indeed, as Mark pointed out in closing argument, he has been saying the same things about Mann’s hockey stick for something like 21 years, and even wrote a book about it.

Hinderaker presents possible faint grounds for optimism:

The trial judge was openly skeptical of Mann’s case, and seemed to take seriously the defendants’ motions for a directed verdict. Those motions presumably were renewed at the close of evidence, and the court might now take them up. It requires a brave judge to take away a jury verdict, but Judge Irving, presiding in this case, was low-key but seemed, if pushed too far, to have a backbone. So who knows, he might do the right thing.

He also presents one avenue of appeal:

In John Williams’ closing argument on behalf of Mann, he said that the jury should award punitive damages so that in the future, no one will dare engage in “climate denialism”–whatever that is–just as Donald Trump’s “election denialism” needs to be suppressed. In 41 years of trying cases to juries, I never heard such an outrageously improper appeal. John Williams should be ashamed of himself, but he won’t be, because this jury apparently bought his argument: they want to make Mark Steyn pay $1 million out of his own pocket, to a plaintiff who suffered no damages but only made an ideological argument, so that no one will, ever again, try to challenge the regime’s global warming narrative. However false that narrative may be.

Retired Justice Department lawyer Clarice Feldman offers another ground for appeal that would not reverse the unjust finding but which would reduce the ruinous $1 million punitive damages:

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the due process clause usually limits punitive damage awards to less than ten times the size of the compensatory damages awarded --the compensatory damages here were $1. The judge might well issue a judgment not withstanding verdict holding that in accord with this ruling Mann is entitled to no more than $10 in punitive damages.”