But a billion dollars. The order of magnitude isn't 'immense stress to an individual', it's on the order of burning down tens or hundreds of houses.

[delayed]

>the judge simply doesn't like the guy

That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the US justice system.

I don't have a lot of confidence in the US justice system :)

Right the problem here is the targeted, selective enforcement -- really, overenforcement -- of laws. Nobody would argue that people hit with $100 million judgments for copyright violations while torrenting music actually had copyright on that music. They didn't. But the point of the eye watering judgments was to send a message. Same here.

>Nobody would argue that people hit with $100 million judgments for copyright violations while torrenting music actually had copyright on that music

I don't understand the above, but they've actually made this judgement, and it's much too large. A firm worth as little as 30 million can be an incredible innovative company, supported by a government and serious effort, and here we have people just handing out a 1 billion dollar fine over something where nothing even close to that value has been destroyed.

It's as I said in my initial comment, the value of a whole town.

The goal of punitive damages is to prevent the person from engaging in the illegal activity again.

If Jones stops spreading lies about this people, then perhaps you have an argument, and a smaller punitive judgement would be enough. But if he keeps going, then we can only conclude that the judgement wasn't enough.