Jury selected for Sarah Palin’s libel suit against The New York Times

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is escorted to her car by Ron Duguay after leaving the courthouse in New York, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022, after she told a jury she felt like she was at the mercy of a 'Goliath' when she first learned a 2017 New York Times editorial suggested her campaign rhetoric helped incite a mass shooting. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK — A jury was selected Monday to hear a retrial of Sarah Palin’s claims that The New York Times libeled her in an editorial eight years ago.

Opening statements were scheduled for Tuesday as the onetime Republican vice presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska gets another chance to prove to a federal jury that the newspaper defamed her with the 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. Palin said it damaged her reputation and career.

The Times has acknowledged the editorial was inaccurate but said it quickly corrected the “honest mistake.”

During a jury selection process that lasted less than an hour, Judge Jed S. Rakoff in Manhattan gave jurors a brief description of the case, saying that the plaintiff was Sarah Palin and the defendant was The New York Times, “complete unknowns I’m sure.”

The trial, expected to last up to two weeks, comes after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the case last year.

In February 2022, Rakoff rejected Palin’s claims in a ruling issued while a jury deliberated. The judge then let jurors deliver their verdict, which also went against Palin.

In restoring the lawsuit, the 2nd Circuit said Rakoff’s dismissal ruling improperly intruded on the jury’s work. It also cited flaws in the trial, saying there was erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction and an erroneous response to a question from the jury.

Before jury selection began Monday, the sometimes self-deprecating and humor-prone Rakoff told lawyers that the appeals court “seems to think I got it wrong in a lot of ways.”

He said that on Friday, he “went back and read the entire opinion, painful though it was.”

The retrial occurs as U.S. President Donald Trump and others in agreement with his views of news coverage have been aggressive toward media outlets when they believe there has been unjust treatment.

Trump sued CBS News for US$20 billion over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and also sued the Des Moines Register over an Iowa election poll that turned out to be inaccurate. ABC News settled a lawsuit with Trump over its incorrect claim the president had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.

Kenneth G. Turkel, a lawyer for Palin, left the courthouse Monday without commenting.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, said Palin’s claim stemmed from “a passing reference to an event in an editorial that was not about Sarah Palin.”

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

Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press