NEW YORK (Washington Insider Magazine) – A federal court in New York said on Monday that it will toss Ex- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, but only when the jury had reached a decision.
In United States District Court in Manhattan, deliberations in the lawsuit started late Friday and resumed Monday.
According to ABC NEWS, Judge Jed Rakoff told the lawyers in the trial that he has made the decision to dismiss the lawsuit because Palin failed to meet the high level of proving that The Times acted with malice when it published an editorial incorrectly linking Palin’s political organization to a shooting.
Rakoff reasoned his decision to dismiss the case by claiming that knowing the outcome of the jury’s deliberations would aid the pending appeal.
Palin, 58, sued The New York Times in 2017, almost 9 years after being named as Sen. John McCain’s Republican vice presidential nominee, saying that the newspaper purposely damaged her emerging career as a political analyst and advisor by publishing a defamatory editorial.
The complaint was filed two days after a gunman opened fire on Republican officials practicing for a congressional charity baseball game in a Washington, D.C. suburb, hurting six people, namely Republican Rep. Steve Scalise.
According to The New York Times editorial board, Palin’s political committee generally triggered a dangerous environment by disbursing a map that placed Giffords’ and nineteen other Democrats’ electoral districts under graphic crosshairs before the 2011 Arizona shooting incident that killed six people and left then-Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords with a painful brain injury.
Two days later, The New York Times clarified the editorial, admitting that it “incorrectly described” the map and “incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting.”
During the lawsuit in United States District Court in Manhattan, Palin portrayed herself as the biblical David, confronting the Philistine giant Goliath with just a slingshot. Palin blamed the New York Times for fabricating stories in order to tarnish her name.
The Time’s previous editorial board editor, James Bennet, stated that while he was accountable for the incorrect information in the article, it was an innocent mistake and that he intended no damage during the trial, which was postponed for many days because of Palin testing positive for COVID-19.
