Jurors will continue to deliberate on Tuesday in Sarah Palin’s defamation suit against The New York Times.
A federal judge said Monday that he planned to dismiss the case, ruling that Ms. Palin’s legal team had failed to meet the extremely high legal standard required to prove that the newspaper defamed her when it published a 2017 editorial erroneously linking her political rhetoric to a mass shooting.
That decision, with the jury still deliberating, added an unexpected and unusual twist. Judge Jed S. Rakoff said he would allow the jurors to continue weighing the arguments by both sides. If they rule in favor of Ms. Palin, he will set aside their verdict and dismiss the case, he said.
The judge indicated that he understood that his word would not be the last one in the case. Ms. Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, is very likely to appeal. And his decision to allow the jurors to continue weighing the evidence and come to a decision was intended to avoid any complications if the case is heard by an appeals court.
In lengthy comments from the bench, Judge Rakoff said he did not believe that Ms. Palin’s lawyers had produced enough evidence to prove their defamation claims.
A landmark Supreme Court case from 1964, The New York Times Company v. Sullivan, established that a public figure like Ms. Palin has to prove that a news organization acted with “actual malice” in publishing false information, meaning it displayed a reckless disregard for the truth or knew the information was false.
“The law sets a very high standard for actual malice, and in this case the court finds that standard has not been met,” he said.
But Judge Rakoff also faulted The Times for a series of poor decisions.
“This is an example of very unfortunate editorializing on the part of The Times,” he said, adding that he was “hardly surprised” that Ms. Palin had sued. “But having said that, that’s not the issue before this court.” His decision came in response to a motion by The Times asking the court to rule in its favor even if the jury reached a different outcome.
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