Palin Seeks To Revive Defamation Suit Against NYT

November 7, 2023 Christianists, Republicans

Courthouse News reports:

Lawyers for former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin asked the Second Circuit on Monday afternoon to revive her twice-dismissed defamation suit against The New York Times over a 2017 editorial that linked her to a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona.

Mounting an appeal against the “actual malice” standard enshrined in the landmark 1964 ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan, which held that the First Amendment requires proof of actual malice in any defamation action brought by a public official, Palin’s attorneys asked the appeals court to overturn the second dismissal of her 2017 defamation suit by a judge last year.

“We don’t think that rule should be applied in the first place. We think the times have changed so significantly since that rule was created by an unelected branch of our government sixty years ago that it has no place in the modern speech landscape,” Palin’s attorney said.

Law & Crime reports:



It’s a case that could be of particular interest to Justice Clarence Thomas, who as recently as October called for the U.S. Supreme Court to “reconsider” the landmark New York Times Co. v. Sullivan defamation precedent of 1964 to potentially upend the “actual malice” standard if the “appropriate” case came along. The once-revived Palin case was dismissed for the second time by Senior U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in early 2022.

A jury controversy quickly emerged, as it was revealed that while deliberations were ongoing “several” jurors heard through push notifications that Judge Rakoff had already decided to toss the case, having found that there was “one essential element that plaintiff [Palin] has not carried its burden with—the portion of actual malice relating to belief in falsity or reckless disregard in falsity.”

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