Attorneys for Sarah Palin have requested a new trial after a jury and the judge presiding over the case rejected her libel claims against The New York Times.
US District Judge Jed Rakoff said during a brief hearing on Wednesday that the legal team for the former Alaska governor intends to file motions to re-try her case and to remove Judge Rakoff from future proceedings.
During the trial, while the jury was deliberating, the judge signalled to the court that he would dismiss Ms Palin’s complaint, determining that no reasonable jury would find that the newspaper and editor at the centre of the trial acted with actual malice in publishing a 2017 editorial that falsely linked a map from her political action committee to a mass shooting in Arizona in 2011.
On 15 February, a unanimous jury found that the newspaper and then-editorial editor James Bennet were not liable for defamation. Ms Palin is expected to appeal.
Another motion from Ms Palin would allow her attorney to interview jurors, several of whom learned of the judge’s decision from news alert push notifications on their phones while they were deliberating.
An order from the judge on 16 February said that the notifications “had not affected them in any way or played any role ... in their deliberations”.
Another motion intends to probe whether Judge Rakoff talked with reporters during the trial, an allegation that he dismissed.
“I had zero communications with media during the trial,” he said on Thursday, according to The New York Times. “None whatsoever.”
Judge Rakoff also said he will release his written decision outlining his reasons for dismissing the case, which should be ready by 1 March.
In remarks to attorneys on Monday, Judge Rakoff said he believes the case to be “an example of very unfortunate editorializing” but that it did not rise to the standard of “actual malice” – a standard established in a landmark US Supreme Court ruling on libel cases in 1967.
Jurors reached their unanimous decision the following day.
