Jury begins deliberating in Palin defamation case

NEW YORK — A widely circulated New York Times editorial falsely linking former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to a mass shooting was a libelous display of arrogance and unchecked power, Palin’s lawyer said in closing arguments Friday at a defamation trial.

A Times lawyer conceded the newspaper had made a mistake but argued there was no evidence it had set out to damage Palin’s reputation.

At the time of the 2017 editorial, Palin was far removed from her fleeting fame as the Republican vice presidential nominee, trying to live a quiet life in her home state, plaintiff attorney Kenneth Turkel told a jury in federal court in Manhattan. The piece drew her into an unfair fight, Turkel said.

“What this dispute is about in its simplest form is power, and lack of power,” he said. He also called it an example of how The Times “treated people on the right they don’t agree with. … They don’t care. She’s just one of ‘them.’ ”

The Times ran a correction but never apologized to Palin, which was “indicative of an arrogance and sense of power that’s uncontrolled,” he added.

In his closing argument, Times lawyer David Axelrod called the case “incredibly important because it’s about freedom of the press.”

The First Amendment protects journalists “who make an honest mistake when they write about a person like Sarah Palin … That’s all this was about — an honest mistake,” Axelrod said.

To prevail in the suit, the plaintiff “needs to show that it wasn’t just an honest mistake” but “that they printed something that they knew was false,” he said. The evidence showed “Gov. Palin can’t come close to meeting that burden,” he added.

Jurors deliberated about two hours at the end of the day without reaching a verdict. They are to resume Monday.