Judge Rules That There Is Enough Evidence to Sustain Sarah Palin's Defamation Lawsuit Against the New York Times;
Orders Case to Proceed to Trial

Would the New York Times say that Sarah Palin is targeting them?

The case had been at the deposition and discovery phase. The New York Times moved that the evidence supported them, and the court should just rule and say "The New York Times wins."

The judge said, "Nah."

A federal judge has ordered a jury trial in former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s libel suit against The New York Times over an editorial linking her to the 2011 Arizona shooting rampage that seriously wounded then-Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed six others.

In the latest round of litigation in the case, U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff rejected separate motions in which the Times and Palin claimed they should prevail based on the existing evidence and depositions in the case.

In a ruling issued Friday evening, Rakoff said the issues were not as clear-cut as either party suggested, so the matter will have to be decided by a jury. He set Feb. 1, 2021, as a target for a trial to open in the case, but noted that the date could be delayed as courts continue to struggle with in-person proceedings amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The initial version of the 2017 Times editorial said it was "clear" that the 2011 shooting was linked to a map Palin's political action committee released that included crosshairs over Giffords' Tucson district. However, no such link has ever been established. The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was found to be mentally ill and was sentenced to life in prison in 2012.

Palin says that this defamation was made with malice, because the fact that this was all a lie had been well-proven by 2017.

The New York Times' defense is, I guess, "We live in a hard-leftist bubble and literally do not know anything beyond the lies we tell each other, so we are innocent of malice."

posted by Ace at 01:15 PM

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