Court revives Sarah Palin’s libel suit against New York Times

A federal appeals court on Wednesday revived Sarah Palin’s defamation case against The New York Times, citing errors by a lower court judge, particularly his decision to dismiss the lawsuit while a jury was deliberating.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote that Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s February 2022 decision to dismiss the lawsuit midway through deliberations improperly interfered with the jury’s work.

It also found that the erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction and an erroneous answer to a jury question affected the jury’s decision to find against Palin. However, he refused to accept Palin’s request to force Rakoff to drop the case on the grounds that he was biased against her. The 2nd Circuit said it offered no evidence.

The libel suit against Palin, a former Republican vice presidential candidate and former governor of Alaska, centered on the newspaper’s 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting that Palin claimed took damaged reputation and career.

The Times acknowledged that its editorial was inaccurate, but said it quickly corrected the errors that it called “honest mistakes” that were never intended to harm Palin.

Shane Vogt, an attorney for Palin, said in an email that Palin was “very pleased with today’s decision, which is a significant step forward in holding publishers accountable for content that misleads readers and the general public”.

“The truth deserves a level playing field, and Governor Palin looks forward to presenting her case to a jury that is ‘provided with relevant evidence proffered and properly instructed on the law,'” Vogt added, citing in part from the decision of the the second circuit.

Charlie Stadtlander, a Times spokesman, said the decision was disappointing. “We are confident that we will prevail in a new trial,” he said in an email.

The 2nd Circuit, in a ruling written by Judge John M. Walker Jr., vacated the jury’s verdict, along with Rakoff’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit while jurors deliberated.

Despite his decision, Rakoff let the jurors finish deliberating and return their verdict, which was against Palin.

The appeals court noted that Rakoff’s decision made credibility determinations, weighed the evidence, and ignored facts or inferences that a reasonable juror could plausibly find supported in Palin’s case.

It also described how the “push notifications” arriving on jurors’ cellphones “came as an unfortunate surprise to the district judge.” The 2nd Circuit said it wasn’t enough for the judge’s clerk to assure jurors that Rakoff’s decision did not affect their deliberations.

“Given a judge’s special position of influence with a jury, we believe that the verdict of a jury reached with knowledge of the disposition of the case already announced by the judge will seldom be unshakable, regardless of what the jurors say on further inquiry,” the court of call. said.

In its ruling Wednesday, the 2nd Circuit said it was granting a new trial because of various trial errors and because Rakoff’s mid-deliberation ruling against Palin, who could have reached jurors through cell phone alerts, “challenges the reliability of that verdict. “

“The jury is sacrosanct in our legal system, and we have a duty to protect its constitutional role, both by ensuring that the role of the jury is not usurped by judges and by ensuring that juries are provided with relevant evidence and are properly instructed in regard to the law”, said the appeal court.

Photo: Former Republican Vice Presidential Candidate

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