US judge rejects Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times
US media reported that a US judge said, on Monday, that he would reject a defamation lawsuit filed by former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin against the New York Times, and ruled that she did not prove her case.
The announcement came while the New York jury was still considering its verdict.
Palin, the 58-year-old former Alaska governor and onetime darling of the conservative Tea Party movement, alleged that the newspaper intentionally discredited it with a 2017 editorial that suggested her campaign rhetoric helped incite mass shootings.
Legal experts said a ruling in her favour would have huge implications for press freedom in the United States.
District Judge Jed Rakoff said he would dismiss the case, accepting a motion made by The Times last week arguing that Palin’s attorneys failed to prove that the Times acted maliciously.
The New York Times reported that Rakoff said he would allow the jury to reach its verdict before issuing a dismissal decision on appeal.
The newspaper reported that he said the appeals court “would benefit greatly from knowing how the jury will decide” the case.
Palin’s lawsuit, in which she sought unspecified damages, was seen as a test case for the First Amendment, which protects press freedom.
The editorial linked the 2011 shooting in Arizona that injured lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others to an announcement run by the Palin Political Action Committee.
The ad, which was shown shortly before the attack, showed Gifford’s congressional district in crossfire.
The Times corrected its editorial the next day saying that there was nothing that could prove that the perpetrator had been paid to act by this controversial ad.
Palin, the Republican nominee for John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, told the Manhattan civil trial last week that the article rendered her “helpless.”
Lawyers for The Times argued that the newspaper did not intend to cause hatred, claiming it was an “outright mistake”.
The bar for proof of defamation in the United States is high, due to the famous 1964 Supreme Court ruling known as The New York Times v. Sullivan.
The plaintiff must prove that the defendant intended to cause harm. It is not enough to prove that an error occurred.
Dmitriy Shakenvich, an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said it was “virtually impossible” for the plaintiff to win such a case.
“You’re going to need some hard evidence to show that they know what they’re writing is false. You’ll never get that,” he told AFP.
Thomas Healey, a First Amendment expert at Seton Hall School of Law in New Jersey, said the judge was likely “proactively protecting” the First Amendment with his ruling in the event a jury ruled the other way.
When asked why the judge had not dismissed the case earlier, Healy said he likely wanted to hear trial testimony first.
(AFP)
