Judge defends move to toss Palin’s libel case against NYT

By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The judge presiding over Sarah Palin’s defamation case against The New York Times said he was unfamiliar with push notifications and didn’t realize news of his decision to toss out the lawsuit would reach jurors deliberating simultaneously. Despite that, he wrote that it didn’t really matter. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said in a written decision released Tuesday that he was “frank to confess” he was unfamiliar with the term “push notifications” and did not “fully appreciate the potential for jurors to be involuntarily informed” about his plans. The one-time Republican vice-presidential candidate’s libel lawsuit centered on a 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting.