Former Republican Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin secured the right to a new trial in her high-profile defamation case against the New York Times on Wednesday.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Palin to allow her to retry her case concerning a 2017 editorial that falsely linked her to a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona that left six people dead and severely injured Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
The appellate court found that District Judge Jed Rakoff, who presided over the original February 2022 trial, committed several critical errors that compromised the proceedings.
On Wednesday Circuit Judge John Walker, writing for the three-judge panel, stated that Rakoff “wrongly excluded evidence” that Palin believed demonstrated the Times’ “actual malice” in publishing the editorial. Furthermore, the panel noted that Rakoff improperly instructed the jury on the standard of proof required for the Times to be held liable.
An additional issue arose when jurors, during their deliberations, received news alerts on their mobile phones indicating that Rakoff intended to dismiss Palin’s case due to insufficient evidence of malice.