The hill that Governor Palin will have to climb to defeat the New York Times in her defamation case came into focus as a district court judge, Jed Rakoff, explained in writing for the first time his reasoning for dismissing her claims from the bench even as the jury was still debating the merits.  

Judge Rakoff contends that Ms. Palin “wholly failed to prove her case even to the minimum standard required by law.” The jurist acknowledged that the timing of his decision during jury deliberations was “a bit unusual” relative to standard “procedural niceties.”

The judge also maintained, though, that allowing the jury to reach a verdict meant that if the riders of the Second United States appeals circuit disagreed with his decision to dismiss, they “would not have to send the case back for trial, since it would have the benefit of the jury’s verdict.”

In dismissing the case from the bench, Judge Rakoff expressed his conviction that “no reasonable jury could find by clear and convincing evidence” that the Times knew the statements linking Ms. Palin to the shooting that wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords were false or that the Times recklessly published them suspecting that they were false. 

Judge Rakoff also explained that he preemptively ruled against Ms. Palin because she failed to show “concrete evidence from which a reasonable juror could return a verdict in h[er] favor.” From the bench, he detected no such showing.    

In the written opinion released Monday, Judge Rakoff returned multiple times to the idea that neither party objected to the timing of his decision in real time. He also maintained that the push notifications of that decision during deliberations “did not nullify the jury’s verdict in any respect” and that even if they had it would not have mattered, since the case was settled by judicial fiat anyway.

Judge Rakoff acknowledged that he “was not familiar” with the term “push notification” and that he “did not fully appreciate the potential for jurors to be involuntarily informed about the Court’s intended ruling through their smartphones.” 

Judge Rakoff went on to reiterate his confidence that this “model jury” was not affected by the notifications. Ms. Palin’s attorneys no doubt disagree. As disclosed in their filing yesterday, their first argument for a new trial demands Judge Rakoff’s disqualification.