Netflix
Jenny Jones testifies in Amedure trial
In 1995, an episode of The Jenny Jones Present by no means aired as a result of its topics had been concerned in a homicide. Jonathan Schmitz was introduced on the present in order that his good friend Scott Amedure might confess his romantic emotions towards Schmitz. Schmitz later killed Amedure.
The case is likely one of the topics featured in Netflix’s new collection Trial by Media, which examines “a number of the most dramatic and memorable trials in latest historical past” by way of the lens of the concept “courtroom dramas have more and more been remodeled right into a type of leisure.”
Right here’s what you should learn about what occurred to Jenny Jones after the incidents of “Discuss Present Homicide” and the place she is now.
Jenny Jones Right now
Jones has a private web site, which offers so much along with her eponymous basis and “Jenny’s Heroes,” a program the place she provides cash to individuals who wish to make a distinction of their communities. She most just lately gave $60,00zero to be divided amongst 11 volunteer hearth departments to buy security gear.
She additionally has a web site known as JennyCanCook.com and a YouTube channel the place she provides cooking demonstrations, although she hasn’t posted something on it since July 2018.
There Was Fast Backlash Towards the Present
Along with Schmitz’s conviction for second-degree homicide, which resulted in him going to jail till his launch in 2017, the Amedure household sued The Jenny Jones Present for wrongful loss of life over the half it performed in Amedure’s loss of life. The jury deliberated for seven hours and returned an 8-1 verdict in favor of the household.
The jury ordered Warner Bros. and Telepictures Productions to pay Amedure’s household $5 million for ache and struggling, $20 million for the lack of Amedure’s companionship to his household and $6,500 for funeral bills, in keeping with the Washington Put up. Host JOnes was not a defendant, however she did testify on the trial, telling the court docket that her present was “a really lighthearted speak present. . . . I feel the viewers pertains to it. I feel most everyone in some unspecified time in the future have had crushes in our lives. Some folks select to disclose the crush on TV.”
After the decision was handed down, Jones known as the judgment “outrageous” and mentioned it “shocked and saddened” her. However she did acknowledge that “the one actual tragedy right here is that Scott Amedure misplaced his life.”
The defendants appealed the decision and in 2002, the Michigan Court docket of Appeals overturned it. They dominated that whereas the present “could also be considered the epitome of unhealthy style and sensationalism,” they mentioned that Amedure’s homicide was “utterly unforeseeable” and that the present “had no obligation to anticipate and stop the act of homicide dedicated by Schmitz three days after leaving the studio,” in keeping with Selection.
Then in 2003, the Michigan State Supreme Court docket refused to listen to the Amedure household’s enchantment on the matter, so Warner Bros. by no means did should pay the Amedure household the settlement damages.
The Present Ran for Eight Extra Years
Regardless of the Schmitz-Amedure incident, The Jenny Jones Present ran till 2003. In a 1999 interview with Dateline: NBC, Jones talked to Jane Pauley in regards to the lawsuit the place she defended herself, saying it wasn’t an ambush of Schmitz.
“The headlines had been that they ambushed him. If I heard that phrase ‘ambushed’ yet another time, I needed to scream as a result of I knew that it wasn’t,” mentioned Jones, including, “I keep in mind one letter that I bought within the mail that mentioned ‘you’ve bought blood in your arms.’”
She went on to insist that she knew Schmitz was not humiliated as a result of she “was there” and that “didn’t occur.”
“He might have chosen to not seem. He might have advised us on the final minute he didn’t wish to do it,” she mentioned, including that Schmitz suspected it was Amedure who had the crush on him and he determined to do the present anyway.
She additionally mentioned that after the present wrapped, Amedure, Schmitz, and their good friend Donna (who was additionally on the present), went out ingesting collectively.
When Pauley identified that perhaps Schmitz shouldn’t have been booked due to his historical past of psychological sickness and suicide makes an attempt, Jones mentioned that Schmitz’s buddies thought he was effectively sufficient to come back on the present, so it was nice — although his buddies weren’t psychological well being professionals.
Jones additionally mentioned that nothing about the way in which they made the present modified after Amedure’s loss of life.
“I don’t assume anybody on the present did something flawed … no one was fired, no one was demoted as a result of no one did something flawed,” mentioned Jones.
Trial By Media is out now on Netflix.
READ NEXT: Jonathan Schmitz Replace: The place Scott Amedure’s Killer Is Right now