Sarah Palin gets new trial in libel case against the New York Times

new York
CNN
—

Two years after Sarah Palin lost her defamation case against the New York Times, the former vice presidential candidate has been granted a retrial, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

In 2022, a New York jury found that Palin had failed to prove that the Times and its editor-in-chief, James Bennet, were liable for defaming Palin. The newspaper had published an editorial falsely linking a map published by Palin's political action committee to a 2011 shooting that injured former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

The editorial in question was published the day of the shooting at a baseball practice in Washington, D.C., that injured Rep. Steve Scalise. It was meant to address the heated political rhetoric leading up to the shooting, but to make its point, the Times falsely claimed there was a “clear” connection between a map Palin's PAC had published that showed crosshairs over congressional districts, including Giffords' district. Bennet testified that he added that there was a clear connection between the two, and when he realized his error, he worked to quickly issue a correction.

Palin sued the Times, but a jury found in 2022 that Palin failed to prove “actual malice,” the legal standard Palin had to meet in her defamation trial because she is a public figure.

But during deliberations, Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that Palin's lawyers had failed to prove a key part of their case and that he would have overturned the jury's verdict if the jury had found in Palin's favor.

Palin appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on Wednesday that the judge's actions “improperly interfered with the jury's jurisdiction by making credibility determinations, weighing evidence, and ignoring facts and conclusions that a reasonable juror could have plausibly found to support Palin's case.”

The appeals court found that there were “several serious issues at trial,” including “the erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate instruction to the jury, a legally erroneous answer to a jury question during deliberation,” and that jurors learned of the judge's dismissal via push notifications on their cellphones while they were still deliberating.

“Governor Palin is very pleased with today's decision, which represents a significant step forward in the process of holding publishers accountable for content that misleads readers and the public at large,” Palin's attorney Shane Vogt said in a statement. “The truth deserves a level playing field, and Governor Palin looks forward to presenting her case to a jury 'armed with the relevant evidence presented and properly instructed on the law,' as set out in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' opinion.”

A New York Times spokesman called the decision “disappointing.”

“We are confident that we will be successful in reopening the case,” said Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander.

Sonia Moghe contributed reporting.