Sarah Palin told Insider she'll "consider" asking the Supreme Court to reevaluate defamation law if she loses her trial.- She's suing the
New York Times for an editorial that linked her PAC's rhetoric to a shooting.
After testifying at trial Wednesday for her defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin told Insider she'll "consider" seeking to have the Supreme Court revoke a landmark defamation case.
Asked if she wanted to have the high court overturn New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 case that established the legal standards for criticizing public figures, Palin told Insider she wants to take it "one step at a time" before deciding whether to make that argument in an appeal.
"We'll consider it after this case," Palin said.
The former Alaska governor said she prefers to win her trial outright rather than go through the appeals process.
Palin filed her lawsuit in 2017 over an editorial published by the Times that June titled "America's Lethal
The Times article, published in its opinion section, drew a link between the shooting and an earlier one, in 2011, where another man shot then-Democratic Rep. Gabriel Giffords in Arizona, wounding her and killing six others. According to the version of the editorial that was initially published, Palin incited that shooting because her political action committee posted an image on Facebook that put Giffords's district under crosshairs.
The Times corrected the article the next day, admitting that there was no established link between Palin's committee's post and the Giffords shooting. Palin filed her lawsuit two weeks later.
The 1964 First Amendment case set the legal standard for defaming public figures
Since Palin is a public figure, the jury must find that Bennet and the Times acted "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard" of the truth in order to find them culpable of defamation under the "actual malice" standard established by the Supreme Court.
Her lawsuit alleges that the Times violated that standard. But if she loses her case, she has the opportunity to appeal it to an appellate court, and then possibly up to the Supreme Court, where it may revisit that standard.
Two right-wing members of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have both criticized the decades-old ruling and said it should be overturned in favor of different standards.
Palin took the stand Wednesday afternoon and testified for about 20 minutes before US District Judge Jed Rakoff, who's overseeing the case, sent the jury home for the day.
The former governor cut a striking figure, wearing a double-breasted fuchsia blazer and black skirt, in the small, wood-paneled and green-curtained courtroom on the 24th floor of a
Her testimony so far mostly consisted of details of her personal life in Wasilla, Alaska, and political career.
"Were you running against established, career politicians and all that stuff?" her attorney asked her.
"Always!" Palin responded with enthusiasm.
Palin followed testimony from Ross Douthat, a New York Times columnist who alerted Bennet to his concerns about the draft of "America's Lethal Politics" that was initially published.
Before Douthat took the stand, Bennet finished his own testimony, which had continued from Tuesday afternoon.
He said he inserted the phrases linking Palin's PAC to the "incitement" of violence while under pressure for a looming deadline, and never imagined people would read his sentences as blaming Palin for the 2011 shooting.
"The question didn't enter my mind," he said.