> The judge implied, and outright told the jury during the trail that Alex was guilty before the jury deliberated

The judge issued a default judgement against Jones for persistent refusal to meet discovery obligations. The jury trial was about damages, not liability (“guilt” is not strictly at issue, since it is a civil and not a criminal case.)

Default judgement is a sanction available for that kind of persistent misconduct in civil cases. (And Jones has two more of them in Sandy Hook cases for the same reason, one in the same Texas court, another in Connecticut. The default judgements in both Texas cases refer to the noncompliance in all three cases in their factual background.)

hmm that's odd as I explicitly remember a moment when Alex himself complained the had been declared "guilty" by the judge without a trial and he said "I believe I am innocent until proven guilty". The judge them reminded him that it was a civil matter and not a criminal matter, therefore there is no "guilty" and "not guilty" there is only "liable" and "not liable" and he was deemed "liable" by default when he failed to respond to the plaintiff's lawsuit.

Jones did not have a jury trial for determining guilt, the judge gave a summary judgement to the plaintiffs because Jones allegedly did not fully comply with discovery. She accurately explained, as a matter of law, that he was guilty. That had been determined at the point of the summary judgement.

What happened recently and in the news was just the jury determining the size of the punishment.

> the judge gave a summary judgement to the plaintiffs because Jones allegedly did not fully comply with discovery.

Nitpick: default judgement. Summary judgement is a different thing.

> I dispute the legality of doing so, when the right to jury trial is protected under the US constitution.

The right to trial by jury in civil cases with a sufficient amount in controversy is not, unlike some other rights protected against federal infringement by the Bill of Rights, incorporated against the states by the 14th Amendment; since this is a state case, there is no federal Constitutional protection.

Also, even in the federal system, the civil jury trial right doesn't give you the right to to escape liability to refusing to allow a fair jury trial to happen by withholding evidence.

…if someone doesn’t do what is required of them (participate in discovery), what would you have done?

Selective participation in discovery is not sufficient and if it hadn't been clear that he had failed to produce all responsive materials when required before the phone oops during the damages phase (which it very much was, for other reasons), that error kind of sealed the deal on that.

Problem being he actually had them, as evidenced by that data being accidentally given to the plaintiff's lawyer by the defendant's lawyer.

Hard to argue it was "impossible" for him to do something that his legal team actually did.