While it did not help that Michael Mann's lawsuit against Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg took place in Washington D.C. that is notoriously Democrat, there is one other factor that likely resulted in Mark Steyn losing: he fired his legal team and decided to represent himself in court.
While, as Powerline author John Hinderaker (who is a former trial lawyer) noted that Steyn delivered a good opening statement, Steyn's legal acumen (if any) was not enough to win against Michael Mann's legal team. This explains why Steyn got the brunt of the judgement and, while he may be a dynamic speaker, Steyn's arguments or charisma was not enough to convince a jury to rule against Michael Mann.
Mark Steyn was either naive or had little knowledge of the U.S. legal system and there is even a saying or unofficial rule among attorneys that lawyers should not represent themselves in court. This is not to say Steyn ultimately brought this verdict entirely on himself, but Steyn's deciding to resort to pro se was obviously a huge mistake.
There is, however, court precedent on the imposition of punitive damages so the monetary award the jury decided to give to Michael Mann from Mark Steyn is, likely, unconstitutional. Hopefully, the judge assigned to the case will take this into account and decide to reduce the penalty Steyn will have to pay before closing out the trial, or Steyn's monetary judgement will be reduced on appeal.
As it turns out, Michael Mann didn't spend a cent of his own money for this trial. His legal team was provided to him by the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. This being the case, the political Right should form a non-profit legal group to not only defend climate skeptics, but also give people, like Michael Mann, a taste of their own medicine when they publicly make insults against people, like Mark Steyn, who disagree with or criticize them.
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