Former vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday sought a new defamation trial against The New York Times, saying she wants the presiding judge from the trial she lost to be disqualified.
Mrs. Palin’s attorneys say she deserves a second shot because some jurors, prior to deliberations, received push notifications about U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff’s decision to dismiss the case no matter the verdict, according to a report in The Daily Mail.
The former Alaska governor sued The Times over a June 2017 editorial that erroneously linked her to the 2011 shooting in Arizona that killed six people and wounded then-Rep. Gabby Giffords.
The newspaper corrected an article, saying it was a mistake to assert a link between the shooting and a map circulated by Mrs. Palin’s political action committee that included Ms. Giffords’ district among 20 districts underneath digitized crosshairs.
Jurors rejected Mrs. Palin’s claims, but the Republican will seek another try, given the judge’s conclusion — before jurors weighed in — that The Times had not acted with “actual malice” against Mrs. Palin.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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