Sarah Palin wants a court mulligan with the Gray Lady.
The former vice presidential candidate's attorneys are trying to revive the libel case she brought and lost against The New York Times, contending an editorial misinformed readers by linking her political action committee to the 2011 shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Politico reported.
The former Alaskan governor, who once ran on the ticket with the now late Arizona Sen. John McCain as just "an average hockey mom," made a case before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan. It is a 60-year-old Supreme Court ruling that set a threshold for public figures to prove "actual malice" to secure libel case victories.
“We think the times have changed so significantly since that rule was created by an unelected branch of our government 60 years ago, that it has no place in the modern speech landscape,” said Palin's attorney Shane Vogt in the lawsuit filed against the Times.
Palin claimed that the paper's 2017 editorial titled "America's Lethal Politics" committed libel when it pinned her to the shooting of Giffords.
“It was devastating to read a false accusation that I had anything to do with murder,” Palin said at the time. “I felt powerless — that I was up against Goliath … I was David.”
The paper also published a correction that read: "An editorial on Thursday about the shooting of Representative Steve Scalise incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords. In fact, no such link was established."
But after a two-week jury trial culminated in Manhattan last year with U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff ruling against Palin, adding the case lacked supporting evidence to back up the claim the Times' editorial staff intentionally ran false claims against her.
The attempt to revitalize the suit was received with a ho-hum response by one of the judges. Politico reported that Judge John Walker, who is the cousin of President George H.W. Bush and appointed by him, told Vogt: “I think you’re wasting time for oral argument by spending a lot of time on this question."
Still, the panel did seem to be convinced of Vogt’s claim that the original judge in the case failed to consider some evidence at the trial, noting that Times’ page editor James Bennet may have hurt the outlet's case when he stated earlier versions of the story didn't verify a link to the 2011 shooting to Palin's political action committee.
He testified that the error was hard to forget.
“I’ve regretted it pretty much every day since,” he said.
