A $1000 Fine for a Billionaire’s Violation of a Judicial Gag Order?

 

In a personal injury case, punitive damages, if awarded, are calibrated to cause pain to the defendant. Rich defendant, higher punitives. In some European countries criminal are sentenced to “day fines,” confiscating, each day, so much of the defendant’s income as would reduce all defendants, rich or poor, to roughly the same standard of living from income: something a little above subsistence.

To have any effect on Trump’s behavior and to have any hope of securing witnesses and court personnel from intimidation, a meaningful deterrent is needed. If it is financial in nature, it has to be a high dollar amount.  

If 4 weren’t even, would it be a prime number?

This counterfactual conditional, you may think, is a little hard to evaluate. The counterfactual, you might say, is underdefined by its very nature. You might even go so far as to say that 4’s not being even, being a contradiction, could authorize any conclusion. It might be a teacup.