It’s been quite a while since the last In Plain English update on the Digital Homicide lawsuit, but earlier this week two new documents were presented to the court system that, as some of you have pointed out, I’ve ignored. I posted a short bit on Twitter essentially saying that nothing new was really presented, but for the sake of documentation, it’s best to just go over recent developments in a little more detail. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to assume you’re up to date on the case. If not, check out our previous coverage.

There are a few things at issue here. James Stanton has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds of jurisdiction, among other complaints, to which James Romine filed a response and a motion to amend as well as a motion to exceed the page limit. The court accepted the first motion to amend and motion to exceed the page limit.

However, Romine filed a motion to amend his response and Stanton objected on the grounds that the amendment didn’t do anything but repeat previous arguments. The court has upheld the defense, and denied the second motion to amend the response.

As a result, the court has approved a motion for leave to the plaintiff to amend his response to the defense’s motion to dismiss the case. In layman’s terms, Romine has more time to respond to Stanton’s attempt to have the case dismissed.

The second document is a 28 page rebuttal of Stanton’s defenses. It reiterates a lot of what Romine has said already, that Stanton does business in Arizona because people in the state can subscribe to his Patreon and buy items. He states that he can sue Stanton as an individual because the defense used his name specifically in coverage (calling him Romino).

Romine was also CISSP certified until 2014, and his sales have been destroyed by Stanton’s followers. I’m not sure what those two have to do with each other, but they’re noted in the same paragraph.

Our take: Once again, it’s interesting to see Digital Homicide, a company with seemingly little self-awareness of their public perception, using the Ventura v Kyle case in their list of precedent. If you’re not aware, Jesse Ventura sued former Navy Seal Chris Kyle over Kyle’s statement that he punched Ventura in the face at a bar after Ventura allegedly stated that the Seals could “lose a few” in reference to Kyle’s deceased fellow soldiers. When Kyle was murdered in 2013 at a shooting range in Texas, Ventura instead pursued damages against Kyle’s estate. He came out with $1.8 million, which he has since been accused of lying to the court and claiming said money would be paid by the book publisher’s insurance in order to ensure a verdict in his favor.

(Addendum: The verdict in Ventura’s favor has been thrown out and the case is set to go to retrial. This was accidentally deleted along with another comment.)

Romine is still representing himself as of this publishing and his Gofundme for a lawyer presently sits at $425.