Sarah Palin Returns to Manhattan Courtroom as Retrial Against New York Times Over 2017 Editorial Begins

By: Fern Sidman

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, is once again facing off against The New York Times in a high-stakes Manhattan courtroom, as her libel retrial against the influential newspaper formally begins this week. As detailed by The New York Post on Monday, Palin is pursuing a second attempt to convince a jury that the Times defamed her in a controversial 2017 editorial that, she argues, falsely linked her political rhetoric to a deadly mass shooting in Arizona.

The lawsuit stems from a June 14, 2017 opinion piece titled “America’s Lethal Politics,” published by the Times following the shooting at a congressional Republican baseball team practice, which left Rep. Steve Scalise and three others injured. In the editorial, the Times referred to a 2010 campaign map released by Palin’s PAC, which included stylized crosshairs over congressional districts — including that of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in 2011 in an attack that left six people dead.

According to the information provided in The New York Post report, Palin alleged that the Times defamed her by asserting there was a “clear link” between her campaign materials and the shooting, despite no evidence that the gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, was influenced by her political messaging. The Times maintains the reference was an editorial error that was corrected promptly, not an act of malice or intentional defamation.

The retrial comes after a 2022 jury sided with the Times, finding that Palin had not met the high legal threshold required to prove libel as a public figure. However, that trial was marred by controversy: as The New York Post reported at the time, several jurors received news alerts on their phones indicating that Judge Jed Rakoff had already decided to dismiss the case, even as deliberations were still underway. Although jurors later insisted that this news had no effect on their verdict, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with the conduct of the case.

In August 2023, the appeals court ruled that Rakoff had wrongly excluded key evidence that could have favored Palin’s claims — paving the way for this week’s retrial, which the report in The New York Post noted is expected to last approximately two weeks.

On Monday, a new nine-person jury was selected in under an hour, and opening statements are expected Tuesday. Palin, now 61, appeared in court but did not speak to the press. This time around, the trial is expected to feature testimony from both Palin and former New York Times editorial page director James Bennet, who was the editor responsible for inserting the lines at the center of the controversy.

The legal challenge Palin faces is steep. As the report in The New York Post explained, libel law for public figures requires proof of “actual malice” — that is, the publication either knew the statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Judge Rakoff, who is again overseeing the proceedings, acknowledged in the previous trial that the Times had engaged in “unfortunate editorializing,” but still concluded that Palin’s legal team had failed to meet the burden of proof.

In response to the retrial, New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander told The New York Post that the case centers on a “passing reference” to Palin in an editorial that was not primarily about her.

“That reference was an unintended error, and quickly corrected,” Stadtlander said. “We’re confident we will prevail and intend to vigorously defend the case.”

During the original trial in 2022, Palin delivered emotional testimony, describing the pain of being publicly blamed for a mass shooting.

“It was devastating to read, again, an accusation — a false accusation — that I had anything to do with murdering innocent people,” Palin told the jury, as reported by The New York Post.

Her legal team argued that the Times’ wording in the editorial crossed a line from opinion to defamatory accusation, one that damaged her public reputation and caused significant emotional distress. The New York Post reported that at the time, Palin was also in the public spotlight for her relationship with former New York Rangers star Ron Duguay, who supported her in court. Palin, a mother of five, divorced her husband Todd Palin in 2019 after 31 years of marriage.

The case is being closely watched not only for its implications for Palin personally, but also for its potential impact on First Amendment protections for the media. As The New York Post report indicated, the outcome could shape how newspapers and other outlets handle political opinion pieces that reference public figures and national tragedies.

Palin’s legal team is expected to argue that the Times acted with reckless disregard by linking her to the Giffords shooting without evidence, and that Bennet’s edits to the editorial were not only sloppy but intentionally harmful. The Times, for its part, will argue that it made a good-faith effort to correct the error and that there was no malicious intent.

As the trial moves forward this week in Manhattan federal court, both legal teams will present their evidence to the jury, with a particular focus on editorial decision-making processes and the internal communications leading up to the publication of the 2017 opinion piece.

Observers across political and journalistic circles are watching closely. The question at the center of this high-profile retrial is both simple and consequential: Was a respected newspaper’s mistake an unfortunate error — or a malicious act of defamation against a political lightning rod? A New York jury will now decide.