New York Times Prevails Over Sarah Palin at Second Libel Trial

Sarah Palin lost her defamation case against the New York Times Tuesday, with a jury finding for a second time that the newspaper didn’t libel the former Alaska Republican governor in a 2017 editorial.

Palin’s attorneys argued throughout the week-long trial that the ex-vice presidential candidate suffered reputational harm and emotional distress after the Times linked her to the shooting of then-Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona.

“The decision reaffirms an important tenet of American law: publishers are not liable for honest mistakes,” a Times spokesperson said.

Law professors questioned whether the political climate of increasing media skepticism might hurt the Times. But much of the week-long witness testimony echoed the first trial.

Palin “just doesn’t count to them,” her attorney, Kenneth Turkel, said of the publication in summations Tuesday morning. Felicia Ellsworth, an attorney for the paper, argued the editorial didn’t rise to the legal standard for libel.

Under US Supreme Court precedent, Palin had to show the Times acted with “actual malice"— recklessly disregarding the truth or knowing their information was wrong but publishing anyway.

There’s “not a shred of evidence” showing the editorial’s link between the shooting and Palin “was anything other than an honest mistake,” Ellsworth said in her closing.

Palin’s attorneys leaned into some of the evidence the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said was wrongly excluded in an earlier trial. They pointed out that co-defendant James Bennet, who edited the 2017 editorial, edited the Atlantic when that magazine said Palin wasn’t responsible for the shooting.

The case is Palin v. The N.Y. Times Co., S.D.N.Y., No. 1:17-cv-04853, 4/22/25.