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Court revives Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against The New York Times
Top Court Watch |
2024/08/27 13:33
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A federal appeals court revived Sarah Palin’s libel case against The New York Times on Wednesday, citing errors by a lower court judge, particularly his decision to dismiss the lawsuit while a jury was deliberating.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote that Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s decision in February 2022 to dismiss the lawsuit mid-deliberations improperly intruded on the jury’s work.
It also found that the erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction and an erroneous response to a question from the jury tainted the jury’s decision to rule against Palin. It declined, however, to grant Palin’s request to force Rakoff off the case on grounds he was biased against her. The 2nd Circuit said she had offered no proof.
The libel lawsuit by Palin, a onetime Republican vice presidential candidate and former governor of Alaska, centered on the newspaper’s 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting, which Palin asserted damaged her reputation and career.
The Times acknowledged its editorial was inaccurate but said it quickly corrected errors it called an “honest mistake” that were never meant to harm Palin.
Shane Vogt, a lawyer for Palin, said in an email that Palin was “very happy with today’s decision, which is a significant step forward in the process of holding publishers accountable for content that misleads readers and the public in general.”
“The truth deserves a level playing field, and Governor Palin looks forward to presenting her case to a jury that is ‘provided with relevant proffered evidence and properly instructed on the law,’” Vogt added, quoting in part from the 2nd Circuit ruling.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, said the decision was disappointing. “We’re confident we will prevail in a retrial,” he said in an email.
The 2nd Circuit, in a ruling written by Judge John M. Walker Jr., reversed the jury verdict, along with Rakoff’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit while jurors were deliberating.
Despite his ruling, Rakoff let jurors finish deliberating and render their verdict, which went against Palin.
The appeals court noted that Rakoff’s ruling made credibility determinations, weighed evidence, and ignored facts or inferences that a reasonable juror could plausibly find supported Palin’s case.
It also described how “push notifications” that reached the cellphones of jurors “came as an unfortunate surprise to the district judge.” The 2nd Circuit said it was not enough that the judge’s law clerk was assured by jurors that Rakoff’s ruling had not affected their deliberations.
“Given a judge’s special position of influence with a jury, we think a jury’s verdict reached with the knowledge of the judge’s already-announced disposition of the case will rarely be untainted, no matter what the jurors say upon subsequent inquiry,” the appeals court said.
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Venezuela’s Supreme Court certifies Maduro’s claims that he won presidential election
Top Court Watch |
2024/08/25 08:20
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Venezuela’s Supreme Court has backed President Nicolás Maduro’s claims that he won last month’s presidential election and said voting tallies published online showing he lost by a landslide were forged.
The ruling is the latest attempt by Maduro to blunt protests and international criticism that erupted after the contested July 28 vote in which the self-proclaimed socialist leader was seeking a third, six-year term.
The high court is packed with Maduro loyalists and has almost never ruled against the government.
Its decision, read Thursday in an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats, came in response to a request by Maduro to review vote totals showing he had won by more than 1 million votes.
The main opposition coalition has accused Maduro of trying to steal the vote.
Thanks to a superb ground game on election day, opposition volunteers managed to collect copies of voting tallies from 80% of the 30,000 polling booths nationwide and which show opposition candidate Edmundo González won by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
The official tally sheets printed by each voting machine carry a QR code that makes it easy for anyone to verify the results and are almost impossible to replicate.
“An attempt to judicialize the results doesn’t change the truth: we won overwhelmingly and we have the voting records to prove it,” González, standing before a Venezuelan flag, said in a video posted on social media.
The high court’s ruling certifying the results contradicts the findings of experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center who were invited to observe the election and which both determined the results announced by authorities lacked credibility. Specifically, the outside experts noted that authorities didn’t release a breakdown of results by each of the 30,000 voting booths nationwide, as they have in almost every previous election.
The government has claimed — without evidence — that a foreign cyberattack staged by hackers from North Macedonia delayed the vote counting on election night and publication of the disaggregated results.
González was the only one of 10 candidates who did not participate in the Supreme Court’s audit, a fact noted by the justices, who in their ruling accused him of trying to spread panic.
The former diplomat and his chief backer, opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado, went into hiding after the election as security forces arrested more than 2,000 people and cracked down on demonstrations that erupted spontaneously throughout the country protesting the results.
Numerous foreign governments, including the U.S. as well as several allies of Maduro, have called on authorities to release the full breakdown of results.
Gabriel Boric, the leftist president of Chile and one of the main critics of Maduro’s election gambit, lambasted the high court’s certification. |
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Court grants Texas man a stay of execution just before his scheduled lethal injection
Top Court Watch |
2024/07/17 12:20
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The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for a Texas man 20 minutes before he was to receive a lethal injection Tuesday evening. The inmate has long maintained DNA testing would help prove he wasn’t responsible for the fatal stabbing of an 85-year-old woman during a home robbery decades ago.
The nation’s high court issued the indefinite stay shortly before inmate Ruben Gutierrez was to have been taken to the death chamber of a Huntsville prison.
Gutierrez was condemned for the 1998 killing of Escolastica Harrison at her home in Brownsville in Texas’ southern tip. Prosecutors said the killing of the mobile home park manager and retired teacher was part of an attempt to steal more than $600,000 she had hidden in her home because of her mistrust of banks.
Gutierrez has sought DNA testing that he claims would help prove he had no role in her death. His attorneys have said there’s no physical or forensic evidence connecting him to the killing. Two others also were charged in the case.
The high court’s brief order, released about 5:40 p.m. CDT, said its stay of execution would remain in effect until the justices decide whether they should review his appeal request. If the court denies the request, the execution reprieve would automatically be lifted.
Gutierrez, who had been set to die after 6 p.m. CDT, was in a holding cell near the death chamber when prison warden Kelly Strong advised him of the court’s intervention.
“He was visibly emotional,” prison spokeswoman Amanda Hernandez said, adding he was not expecting the court stay. “We asked him if he wanted to make a statement but he needed a minute.”
“He turned around to the back of the cell, covered his mouth. He was tearing up, speechless. He was shocked.”
She said Gutierrez then prayed with a prison chaplain and added: “God is great!”
Gutierrez has had several previous execution dates in recent years that have been delayed, including over issues related to having a spiritual adviser in the death chamber. In June 2020, Gutierrez was about an hour away from execution when he got a stay from the Supreme Court.
In the most recent appeal, Gutierrez’s attorneys had asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing Texas has denied his right under state law to post-conviction DNA testing that would show he would not have been eligible for the death penalty. |
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Israel’s high court orders the army to draft ultra-Orthodox men
Top Court Watch |
2024/06/27 16:41
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Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously that the military must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men for compulsory service, a landmark decision that could lead to the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition as Israel continues to wage war in Gaza.
The historic ruling effectively puts an end to a decades-old system that granted ultra-Orthodox men broad exemptions from military service while maintaining mandatory enlistment for the country’s secular Jewish majority. The arrangement, deemed discriminatory by critics, has created a deep chasm in Israel’s Jewish majority over who should shoulder the burden of protecting the country.
The court struck down a law that codified exemptions in 2017, but repeated court extensions and government delaying tactics over a replacement dragged out a resolution for years. The court ruled that in the absence of a law, Israel’s compulsory military service applies to the ultra-Orthodox like any other citizen.
Under longstanding arrangements, ultra-Orthodox men have been exempt from the draft, which is compulsory for most Jewish men and women, who serve three and two years respectively as well as reserve duty until around age 40.
These exemptions have long been a source of anger among the secular public, a divide that has widened during the eight-month-old war, as the military has called up tens of thousands of soldiers and says it needs all the manpower it can get. Over 600 soldiers have been killed since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Politically powerful ultra-Orthodox parties, key partners in Netanyahu’s governing coalition, oppose any change to the current system. If the exemptions are ended, they could bolt the coalition, causing the government to collapse and likely leading to new elections at a time when its popularity has dropped.
In the current environment, Netanyahu could have a hard time delaying the matter any further or passing laws to restore the exemptions. During arguments, government lawyers told the court that forcing ultra-Orthodox men to enlist would “tear Israeli society apart.”
A statement from Netanyahu’s Likud party criticized the ruling, saying a bill in parliament backed by the Israeli leader would address the draft issue. Critics say it falls short of Israel’s wartime needs.
“The real solution to the draft problem is not a Supreme Court ruling,” the statement said.
In its ruling, the court found that the state was carrying out “invalid selective enforcement, which represents a serious violation of the rule of law, and the principle according to which all individuals are equal before the law.”
It did not say how many ultra-Orthodox should be drafted, but the military has said it is capable of enlisting 3,000 this year.
Some 66,000 ultra-Orthodox men are now eligible for enlistment, according to Shuki Friedman, an expert on religion and state affairs and the vice-president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
The ruling of Israel’s highest court must be followed, and the military is expected to begin doing so once it forms a plan for how to draft thousands of members of a population that’s deeply opposed to service, and which follows a cloistered and modest lifestyle the military may not be immediately prepared to accommodate. The army had no immediate comment. |
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Trump's lawyers ask judge to lift gag order imposed during New York trial
Top Court Watch |
2024/06/10 12:22
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Donald Trump’s lawyers are asking a New York judge to lift the gag order that barred the former president from commenting about witnesses, jurors and others tied to the criminal case that led to his conviction for falsifying records to cover up a potential sex scandal.
In a letter Tuesday, Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to end the gag order, arguing there is nothing to justify “continued restrictions on the First Amendment rights of President Trump” now that the trial is over.
Among other reasons, the lawyers said Trump is entitled to “unrestrained campaign advocacy” in light of President Joe Biden’s public comments about the verdict last Friday, and continued public criticism of him by his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen and porn actor Stormy Daniels, both key prosecution witnesses.
Trump’s lawyers also contend the gag order must go away so he’s free to fully address the case and his conviction with the first presidential debate scheduled for June 27.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.
Merchan issued Trump’s gag order on March 26, a few weeks before the start of the trial, after prosecutors raised concerns about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s propensity to attack people involved in his cases.
Merchan later expanded it to prohibit comments about his own family after Trump made social media posts attacking the judge’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant. Comments about Merchan and District Attorney Alvin Bragg are allowed, but the gag order bars statements about court staff and members of Bragg’s prosecution team.
Trump was convicted Thursday of 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to Daniels just before the 2016 election. She claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 11.
Prosecutors had said they wanted the gag order to “protect the integrity of this criminal proceeding and avoid prejudice to the jury.” In the order, Merchan noted prosecutors had sought the restrictions “for the duration of the trial.” He did not specify when they would be lifted.
Blanche told the Associated Press last Friday that it was his understanding the gag order would expire when the trial ended and that he would seek clarity from Merchan, which he did on Tuesday. |
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