A federal jury in Manhattan on Tuesday found the New York Times not liable for allegedly defaming Sarah Palin in a 2017 editorial about gun control, dealing the former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate a second loss at trial.
The verdict came in a retrial of Palin’s case, after a federal appeals court threw out a 2022 verdict in the Times’ favor. Palin, 61, who also served as Alaska’s governor, sued the newspaper and former editorial page editor James Bennet over a June 14, 2017, article that wrongly suggested she may have incited a January 2011 mass shooting in an Arizona parking lot.
Six people were killed and Democratic U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords was seriously wounded in the attack.
Bennet said he was under deadline pressure when he added language to “America’s Lethal Politics” that linked the attack to a map from Palin’s political action committee that put Giffords and other Democrats under crosshairs.
The Times quickly acknowledged its mistake and apologized, publishing a correction 14 hours after the editorial appeared online.
Lawyers for Palin said that wasn’t enough because the backtracking didn’t mention her by name.
In her closing argument, Times’ lawyer Felicia Ellsworth alluded to the high burden that Palin, a public figure, had in order to hold the newspaper liable.
“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. “There has not been one shred of evidence showing anything other than an honest mistake.”
Palin lawyer Ken Turkel said it was more than that.
“”This is not an honest mistake about a passing reference” to Palin, he said in his closing argument. “For her, it was a life-changer.” Palin lost her first trial in February 2022, but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan last August said the verdict was tainted by several rulings from the presiding judge. The case had long been viewed by Palin and other conservatives as a possible vehicle to overturn the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court landmark New York Times v. Sullivan.
In that case, the court said that to win a defamation case, a public figure must demonstrate that an offending statement was made with “actual malice,” meaning with knowledge it was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it was false. The 2nd Circuit, however, said Palin waived the argument by waiting too long to challenge the “actual malice” standard. President Donald Trump has also questioned the standard. Palin was Alaska’s governor from 2006 to 2009, and ran with late Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in his unsuccessful 2008 White House run. Democrat Barack Obama and his vice presidential pick Joe Biden won that race.