An appeals court overturned Wednesday’s decision to disqualify ex-American Sarah Palin from defamation proceedings against The New York Times, giving her the right to sue new in this case which is symbolic of the debate on freedom of speech in the United States.
“This decision disappoints us. We are confident we will win a new trial,” New York Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander responded in an email sent to AFP.
The case goes back to a June 2017 editorial in the prestigious New York daily that denounced gun violence after another shooting in the United States.
The newspaper established a connection between another shooting, in 2011, against the Democratic elected official from Arizona, Gabrielle Giffords, and an ad from a committee supporting Sarah Palin, in which the victim’s constituency was named with a sign like a line of sight.
The next day, the “NYT” corrected its editorial, admitting that there was nothing to prove that the shooter who killed six and seriously wounded Gabrielle Giffords was pushed to engage with this advertising, but the former governor of Alaska and a figure in the conservative Tea Party movement in the late 2000s sued the newspaper for defamation.
The trial in early 2022 was seen as a new test for freedom of expression that protects newspapers against public figures in the United States, with the latter trying to prove “genuine malice” on side of the news agency. A Manhattan civil court jury finally acquitted the former Republican candidate for vice president of the United States (2008), but a federal appeals court overturned this decision on Tuesday.
She especially criticizes the Judge Jed Rakoff who was in charge of the trial for having announced that he would dismiss Sarah Palin, regardless of the side the lawyers would consider.
2024-08-28 19:58:14
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