• by Ray Schultz , April 22, 2025

A New York jury decided, after two hours of deliberations on Tuesday, that The New York Times had not defamed Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 vice presidential candidate, with a 2017 editorial.

This was the second victory for the Times in the case. 

“The decision reaffirms an important tenet of American law: Publishers are not liable for honest mistakes,” says Danielle Rhoades Ha, a Times spokeswoman, the Times reports in an article on the verdict. 

Conservatives had hoped to use the Palin suit as a springboard for challenging the 1964 Times v. Sullivan decision, which held that a defamation plaintiff must prove actual malice, or a reckless disregard for the facts.

In 2017, the Times published an editorial that it admitted incorrectly connected the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and others in 2011 with a map created by Palin’s political action committee, featuring a rifle with Democratic districts in its crosshairs. 

Palin lost the suit in 2022, but was granted a retrial by a federal appeals court.