Legal experts say Sarah Palin's defamation case against the New York Times is not a good vehicle for testing the 1964 Supreme Court decision NYT v. Sullivan, which set the standard for libel and slander cases against public figures.
While Palin has yet to detail her plans after both U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff and the jury said this week the Times did not defame the former governor, she signaled earlier this month she would consider appealing to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals — a long-shot strategy that could allow high court justices to consider taking up her case.
Before a unanimous jury's Tuesday decision against Palin's defamation allegations against the Times, Rakoff said Monday he would toss her case because her legal counsel failed to prove the publication acted with"actual malice" or reckless disregard in its editorial. The judge's decision to throw out Palin's case essentially provided a"double layer of insulation for his decision," according to Zack Smith, a legal and judicial studies fellow at the Heritage Foundation. But because Rakoff's decision was disseminated to some sequestered jurists,"it just makes the appellate process much more messy," he told the Washington Examiner.
At least two judges on the Supreme Court, Republican-appointed Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have signaled a willingness to reconsider the standards set in the Sullivan case, according to dissenting opinions from 2021.
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