The victory comes in a retrial after a 2022 verdict siding with the Times was tossed out
A Manhattan federal jury has decided in favor of the New York Times in a defamation suit filed by ex-US vice president candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin, reported Reuters.
As per the verdict delivered after a ~2-hour deliberation, the New York Times is not liable for supposedly defaming Palin in a 2017 editorial. Palin had filed a suit against the publication and its former editorial page editor James Bennet after the piece erroneously implied that she incited a mass shooting in Arizona.
The article “America’s Lethal Politics,” which was published on June 14, 2017, tackled the issue of gun control in relation to a January 2011 shooting in a parking lot that killed six and severely injured Democratic US Representative Gabby Giffords. The piece included language that connected the incident to a map from Palin’s political action committee that targeted Giffords and other Democrats.
Bennet explained that he was under deadline pressure when he penned the story. Fourteen hours after its publication online, the Times issued a correction about the piece and apologized; however, Palin’s lawyers found the Times’ actions inadequate as the correction did not name Palin.
In his closing argument, lawyer Ken Turkel said in a statement published by Reuters that the editorial error was “not an honest mistake about a passing reference” and that it was a “life-changer” for Palin.
However, lawyer Felicia Ellsworth, who represented the Times, said there was no proof that the publication made more than an honest mistake.
"To win this case, Governor Palin needs to prove that the New York Times and James Bennet did not care about the truth," she said in a snippet from her closing argument that was published by Reuters. "There has not been one shred of evidence showing anything other than an honest mistake."
New York Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said in a statement made after the verdict’s delivery and published by Reuters that the decision “reaffirms an important tenet of American law: publishers are not liable for honest mistakes.” Palin's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to Reuters.
The current verdict comes after a weeklong retrial of the case. The Times also emerged victorious in the initial February 2022 trial, but Manhattan’s 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided last August that the first verdict had been influenced by the presiding judge’s rulings.
According to Reuters, conservatives saw Palin’s case as a likely vehicle to overturn the ruling in the 1964 US Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan. The court had said then that a public figure needed to prove a offending statement was made knowing it was untrue, and without care that it was false. Palin challenged the standard, but the 2nd Circuit appeals court determined that Palin had waived the argument because she took too long to make the challenge.
