ReportWire

Tag: Juries

  • NY jury will have wide latitude to decide civil Trump claims

    NY jury will have wide latitude to decide civil Trump claims

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — The jury hearing an advice columnist’s claims that she was raped by Donald Trump could begin deliberations as soon as Tuesday, and it will have wide latitude in deciding the truthfulness of the allegations against the former president.

    The writer E. Jean Carroll, 79, testified that Trump raped her in 1996 inside a dressing room at the luxury Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan after they had a chance encounter and shopped together for lingerie.

    Trump, 76, has said he never raped Carroll and was never with her at the department store. He has been absent from the trial, though jurors saw portions of his videotaped deposition. He has accused Carroll of making up allegations to fuel sales of her 2019 memoir.

    The jury’s decision in the trial — which involves a civil case and not a criminal one — may come down to who they believe more. Here’s more on how the jury will reach its verdict:

    ___

    WHEN WILL DELIBERATIONS BEGIN?

    Closing arguments are tentatively scheduled for Monday with an expectation that lawyers for Carroll and Trump will finish their statements by the end of the day.

    The judge is expected to read instructions on the law to the jury on Tuesday, with deliberations to begin immediately afterward.

    U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan gave Trump a last chance to request to testify, but the former president’s lawyers indicated he was likely to decline that offer.

    ___

    WHAT WILL JURORS DECIDE?

    Kaplan instructed the nine jurors at the trial’s start that the central claim pertains to “battery.”

    He said that in a civil case, battery can result from even the slightest unlawful touching of another person.

    “The law does not draw a line between different degrees of violence. It totally prohibits all unconsented-to touching from the least to the most violent that a reasonable person would find offensive. In other words, anything from a gentle but unwanted peck on the cheek to stabbing somebody with a knife could be battery for purposes of a civil case like this one,” Kaplan said.

    The jurors will be asked to decide whether Carroll has proven that Trump committed battery. If they decide that Trump committed battery, they are expected to be asked to what degree. After that, Carroll’s attorney has proposed that jurors be asked separately whether Carroll has proven that Trump engaged in forcible touching, sexual abuse and rape. The judge has yet to make a decision on that proposal.

    The trial also involves a claim by Carroll that Trump made defamatory comments while denying her allegations.

    For defamation, jurors will be asked if Carroll had proven that Trump’s statement was defamatory and whether clear and convincing evidence had proven that Trump made the statement maliciously.

    ___

    WHAT IS AT STAKE?

    If a jury agrees that Carroll has proven her claims of battery and defamation, they can award compensatory and punitive damages. The amount is up to the jury.

    There isn’t any chance Trump will go to jail as a result of a case.

    ___

    WHY IS IT A CIVIL RATHER THAN A CRIMINAL CASE?

    Carroll acknowledged during her testimony that she never went to police.

    Her decision not to report a crime for so long rules out the possibility of prosecutors bringing criminal charges against Trump. Until recently, it also would have prevented Carroll from bringing a lawsuit. But New York last year enacted a law temporarily letting sexual attack victims sue their alleged abusers, no matter how long ago the assault occurred.

    Because it is a civil case, Trump was not required to be in court.

    Unlike in a criminal trial, where a prosecutor might have to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, a civil jury decides based on “preponderance of the evidence,” meaning whether something is more likely to be true than not.

    To prove the defamation claim, Carroll is required to prove her allegations by clear and convincing evidence, which is a higher legal standard than preponderance of the evidence.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Jury finds Ed Sheeran didn’t copy Marvin Gaye classic

    Jury finds Ed Sheeran didn’t copy Marvin Gaye classic

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — British singer Ed Sheeran didn’t steal key components of Marvin Gaye’s classic 1970s tune “Let’s Get It On” to create his hit song “Thinking Out Loud,” a jury said with a trial verdict Thursday, prompting Sheeran to joke later that he won’t have to follow through on his threat to quit music.

    The emotions of an epic copyright fight that stretched across most of the last decade spilled out as soon as the seven-person jury revealed its verdict after over two hours of deliberations.

    Sheeran, 32, briefly dropped his face into his hands in relief before standing to hug his attorney, Ilene Farkas. As jurors left the courtroom in front of him, Sheeran smiled, nodded his head at several of them, and mouthed the words: “Thank you.” Later, he posed for a hallway photograph with a juror who lingered behind.

    He also approached plaintiff Kathryn Townsend Griffin, the daughter of Ed Townsend, who co-created the 1973 soul classic with Gaye and had testified. They spoke about 10 minutes, hugging and smiling and, at one point, clasping their hands together.

    Sheeran later addressed reporters outside the courthouse, revisiting his claim made during the trial that he would consider quitting songwriting if he lost the case.

    “I am obviously very happy with the outcome of this case, and it looks like I’m not going to have to retire from my day job, after all. But at the same time, I am unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all,” the singer said, reading from a prepared statement.

    He also said he missed his grandmother’s funeral in Ireland because of the trial, and that he “will never get that time back.”

    Inside the courthouse after the verdict, Griffin said she was relieved.

    “I’m just glad it’s over,” she said of the trial. “We can be friends.”

    She said she was pleased Sheeran approached her.

    “It showed me who he was,” Griffin said.

    She said her copyright lawsuit wasn’t personal but she wanted to follow through on a promise to her father to protect his intellectual property.

    A juror, Sophia Neis, told reporters afterward that there was not immediate consensus when deliberations began.

    “Everyone had opinions going in. Both sides had advocates, said Neis, 23. ”There was a lot of back and forth.”

    The verdict capped a two-week trial that featured a courtroom performance by Sheeran as the singer insisted, sometimes angrily, that the trial was a threat to all musicians who create their own music.

    Sheeran sat with his legal team throughout the trial, defending himself against the lawsuit by Townsend’s heirs, who had said “Thinking Out Loud” had so many similarities to “Let’s Get It On” that it violated the song’s copyright protection.

    It was not the first court victory for a singer whose musical style draws from classic soul, pop and R&B, making him a target for copyright lawsuits. A year ago, Sheeran won a U.K. copyright battle over his 2017 hit “Shape of You” and then decried what he labeled a “culture” of baseless lawsuits that force settlements from artists eager to avoid a trial’s expense.

    Outside court, Sheeran said he doesn’t want to be taken advantage of.

    “I am just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy,” he said. “I am not and will never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone to shake.”

    At the trial’s start, attorney Ben Crump told jurors on behalf of the Townsend heirs that Sheeran himself sometimes performed the two songs together. The jury saw video of a concert in Switzerland in which Sheeran can be heard segueing on stage between “Let’s Get It On” and “Thinking Out Loud.” Crump said it was “smoking gun” proof Sheeran stole from the famous tune.

    In her closing argument on Wednesday, Farkas said Crump’s “smoking gun was shooting blanks.”

    She said the only common elements between the two songs were “basic to the tool kit of all songwriters” and “the scaffolding on which all songwriting is built.”

    “They did not copy it. Not consciously. Not unconsciously. Not at all,” Farkas said.

    When Sheeran testified over two days for the defense, he repeatedly picked up a guitar resting behind him on the witness stand to demonstrate how he seamlessly creates “mashups” of two or three songs during concerts to “spice it up a bit” for his sizeable crowds.

    The English pop star’s cheerful attitude on display under questioning from his attorney all but vanished under cross examination.

    “When you write songs, somebody comes after you,” Sheeran testified, saying the case was being closely watched by others in the industry.

    He insisted that he and the song’s co-writer — Amy Wadge — stole nothing from “Let’s Get it On.”

    Townsend’s heirs said in their lawsuit that “Thinking Out Loud” had “striking similarities” and “overt common elements” that made it obvious that it had copied “Let’s Get It On,” a song that has been featured in numerous films and commercials and scored hundreds of millions of streams spins and radio plays in the past half century.

    Sheeran’s song, which came out in 2014, was a hit, winning a Grammy for song of the year.

    Sheeran’s label, Atlantic Records, and Sony/ATV Music Publishing were also named as defendants in the “Thinking Out Loud” lawsuit, but the focus of the trial was Sheeran.

    Wadge, who was not a defendant, testified on his behalf and hugged Sheeran after the verdict.

    Gaye was killed in 1984 at age 44, shot by his father as he tried to intervene in a fight between his parents. He had been a Motown superstar since the 1960s, although his songs released in the 1970s made him a generational musical giant.

    Townsend, who also wrote the 1958 R&B doo-wop hit “For Your Love,” was a singer, songwriter and lawyer who died in 2003. Griffin, his daughter, testified during the trial that she thought Sheeran was “a great artist with a great future.”

    ___

    Associated Press Writer Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Find more AP stories about Ed Sheeran: https://apnews.com/hub/ed-sheeran

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Andy Warhol portrait of OJ Simpson goes on auction block

    Andy Warhol portrait of OJ Simpson goes on auction block

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — It was 1977, and Andy Warhol was at work on his “Athletes” series, portraits of top sports personalities who, he felt, were gaining cultural prominence just like “the movie stars of yesterday.” One of them was then the star running back of the Buffalo Bills: O.J. Simpson.

    Simpson, then 30, showed up without a or a jersey, and Warhol had to scramble to find a ball. That Polaroid shoot led to 11 silkscreen portraits; one of them is now going on auction for the first time.

    Signed by both men, the portrait is billed by the auction house as a work that brings together two of the most recognizable names of the 20th century and captures “a trajectory of celebrity and tragedy.”

    “Warhol certainly could never have imagined how differently the image would come to be viewed, nor the controversy that still lingers around its subject today,” said Robert Manley, co-head of 20th century and contemporary art at the Phillips auction house, which is auctioning the work May 16.

    It was almost two decades after Warhol’s photo shoot, in 1995, that Simpson — who had retired from the NFL in 1979 and pursued an acting career — was acquitted of the double slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was later found liable for the deaths by a California civil court jury that ordered him to pay $33.5 million to victims’ families.

    In a separate case more than a decade later, Simpson was convicted by a jury in Las Vegas for leading five men, including two with guns, in a 2007 confrontation with two sports collectibles dealers in a cramped room at an off-strip Las Vegas casino hotel. Simpson served nine years in a Nevada prison for armed robbery. He was discharged from parole in December 2021.

    Manley noted that five decades after Warhol made it, the portrait still evokes a strong reaction.

    “Those who view the image of Simpson staring directly down the camera are likely to recall the other notorious picture of the celebrity — his mugshot,” Manley said. “Juxtaposing these two images, created at such different points in Simpson’s life, shows a fascinating trajectory of celebrity and tragedy.”

    Commissioned as part of the broader “Athletes” series that included Muhammad Ali, soccer star Pelé, tennis star Chris Evert, golf’s Jack Nicklaus and figure skater Dorothy Hamill, among others, by Warhol friend and collector Richard Weisman, this particular portrait spent 19 years at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, where it was donated in 1992 and, according to a spokesperson there, never displayed.

    In 2011, it was deaccessioned — or permanently removed from the collection — and sold to an anonymous collector in a private sale through Christie’s, with proceeds going to fund preservation of other items in the hall’s collection, said hall spokesperson Rich Desrosiers. Phillips estimates the portrait will sell in the $300,000 to $500,000 range. As with any of the athletes in the series, Simpson would not have existing rights to proceeds, the auction house said.

    The highest price achieved at auction for one of Warhol’s Simpson portraits was $687,000, sold in 2019.

    Warhol photographed Simpson in Buffalo on Oct. 19, 1977. According to the auction catalog, a quote from Warhol’s diary that day reads, “He had a five-day beard and I thought the pictures would be awful.” Warhol died in 1987 at age 58.

    The work will be on public display May 6-15 in New York before being auctioned.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Andy Warhol portrait of OJ Simpson goes on auction block

    Andy Warhol portrait of OJ Simpson goes on auction block

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — It was 1977, and Andy Warhol was at work on his “Athletes” series, portraits of top sports personalities who, he felt, were gaining cultural prominence just like “the movie stars of yesterday.” One of them was then the star running back of the Buffalo Bills: O.J. Simpson.

    Simpson, then 30, showed up without a or a jersey, and Warhol had to scramble to find a ball. That Polaroid shoot led to 11 silkscreen portraits; one of them is now going on auction for the first time.

    Signed by both men, the portrait is billed by the auction house as a work that brings together two of the most recognizable names of the 20th century and captures “a trajectory of celebrity and tragedy.”

    “Warhol certainly could never have imagined how differently the image would come to be viewed, nor the controversy that still lingers around its subject today,” said Robert Manley, co-head of 20th century and contemporary art at the Phillips auction house, which is auctioning the work May 16.

    It was almost two decades after Warhol’s photo shoot, in 1995, that Simpson — who had retired from the NFL in 1979 and pursued an acting career — was acquitted of the double slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was later found liable for the deaths by a California civil court jury that ordered him to pay $33.5 million to victims’ families.

    In a separate case more than a decade later, Simpson was convicted by a jury in Las Vegas for leading five men, including two with guns, in a 2007 confrontation with two sports collectibles dealers in a cramped room at an off-strip Las Vegas casino hotel. Simpson served nine years in a Nevada prison for armed robbery. He was discharged from parole in December 2021.

    Manley noted that five decades after Warhol made it, the portrait still evokes a strong reaction.

    “Those who view the image of Simpson staring directly down the camera are likely to recall the other notorious picture of the celebrity — his mugshot,” Manley said. “Juxtaposing these two images, created at such different points in Simpson’s life, shows a fascinating trajectory of celebrity and tragedy.”

    Commissioned as part of the broader “Athletes” series that included Muhammad Ali, soccer star Pelé, tennis star Chris Evert, golf’s Jack Nicklaus and figure skater Dorothy Hamill, among others, by Warhol friend and collector Richard Weisman, this particular portrait spent 19 years at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, where it was donated in 1992 and, according to a spokesperson there, never displayed.

    In 2011, it was deaccessioned — or permanently removed from the collection — and sold to an anonymous collector in a private sale through Christie’s, with proceeds going to fund preservation of other items in the hall’s collection, said hall spokesperson Rich Desrosiers. Phillips estimates the portrait will sell in the $300,000 to $500,000 range. As with any of the athletes in the series, Simpson would not have existing rights to proceeds, the auction house said.

    The highest price achieved at auction for one of Warhol’s Simpson portraits was $687,000, sold in 2019.

    Warhol photographed Simpson in Buffalo on Oct. 19, 1977. According to the auction catalog, a quote from Warhol’s diary that day reads, “He had a five-day beard and I thought the pictures would be awful.” Warhol died in 1987 at age 58.

    The work will be on public display May 6-15 in New York before being auctioned.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Road rage shooter convicted of 1st-degree murder

    Road rage shooter convicted of 1st-degree murder

    [ad_1]

    A Colorado man who shot and killed a 13-year-old boy after a road rage confrontation and wounded the boy’s mother, brother and a witness was found guilty of first-degree murder

    ByCOLLEEN SLEVIN Associated Press

    BRIGHTON, Colo. — A Colorado man who shot and killed a 13-year-old boy after a road rage confrontation and wounded the boy’s mother, brother and a witness was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday.

    A jury deliberated for less than three hours before issuing the verdict for Jeremy Webster, who was also found guilty of attempted murder and assault for the June 14, 2018, attack.

    Webster told police that he was not in his body or in control of his emotions during the attack, and that he witnessed his “arm doing the shooting” as if he were an outside observer.

    His lawyer, Rachel Oliver, said he had been losing his mind for years, and asked the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity, which would send him to a mental hospital for treatment.

    But prosecutors said Webster was sane and acted deliberately and with intent, following Meaghan Bigelow and her sons to the parking lot of their dentist office after accusing Bigelow of cutting him off while he was headed to Home Depot. The two argued in the parking lot and Webster pulled out a gun after Bigelow used her phone to take a video of Webster’s car.

    Webster, 28, sat in his chair at the defense table drinking from a water bottle and did not appear to show any emotion when the verdict was read. Meghan Bigelow, seated next to her husband in the front row on the other side of court, cried and wiped away tears as the verdict was read.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Rape lawsuit trial against Donald Trump set to get underway

    Rape lawsuit trial against Donald Trump set to get underway

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — For decades, former President Donald Trump has seemed to shake off allegations, investigations and even impeachments. Now his “Teflon Don” reputation is about to face a new test: a jury of average citizens in a lawsuit accusing him of rape.

    Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday in a trial over former advice columnist’s E. Jean Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her nearly three decades ago in a department store dressing room. He denies it.

    The trial is in a federal civil court, meaning that no matter the outcome, Trump isn’t in danger of going to jail. He isn’t required to be in court, either, and his lawyers have indicated he most likely won’t testify.

    But the trial, which comes as Trump is again running for president, still has the potential to be politically damaging for the Republican. The jury is poised to hear a reprisal of stories of sexual misconduct that rocked his 2016 presidential campaign, allegations he claimed were falsehoods spun up to try to stop him from winning.

    The trial also comes a month after he pleaded not guilty in an unrelated criminal case surrounding payments made to bury accounts of alleged extramarital sex.

    Carroll, who seeks unspecified damages, is expected to testify about a chance encounter with Trump in late 1995 or early 1996 that she says turned violent. The trial will also include Carroll’s defamation claim against Trump over disparaging remarks he made about her in response to the rape allegations. She’s seeking a retraction.

    She says that after running into the future president at Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman, he invited her to shop with him for a woman’s lingerie gift before they teased one another to try on a garment. Carroll says they ended up alone together in a store dressing room, where Trump pushed her against a wall and raped before she fought him off and fled.

    Since Carroll first made her accusations in a 2019 memoir, Trump has vehemently denied that a rape ever occurred or that he even knew Carroll, a longtime columnist for Elle magazine.

    Trump has labeled Carroll a “nut job” and “mentally sick.” He claimed she fabricated the rape claim to boost sales of her book.

    “She’s not my type,” he has said repeatedly, although during sworn questioning in October, he also misidentified her in a photograph as his ex-wife Marla Maples.

    Carroll didn’t stop to speak with reporters as she arrived at the courthouse Tuesday morning.

    Jurors are also expected to hear from two other women who say they were sexually assaulted by Trump.

    Jessica Leeds is set to testify that Trump tried to put his hand up her skirt on a 1979 flight on which the two were assigned neighboring seats. Natasha Stoynoff, a former People magazine staff writer, will testify that Trump pinned her against a wall and forcibly kissed her at his Florida mansion when she went there in 2005 to interview Trump and his then-pregnant wife Melania Trump.

    Jurors will also see the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump is heard making misogynistic remarks about women, including an assertion that celebrities can grab, even sexually, women without asking.

    Carroll’s allegations normally would be too old to bring to court. But in November, New York state enacted a law allowing for suits over decades-old sexual abuse claims.

    The jurors’ names will be withheld from both the public and the lawyers, to protect them against possible harassment.

    Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who will preside over the trial, rejected a request by Trump’s lawyers that jurors be told that the ex-president wanted to spare the city the disruption his presence might cause.

    Kaplan noted that Trump has a New Hampshire campaign event scheduled for Thursday, the third day of the trial.

    “If the Secret Service can protect him at that event, certainly the Secret Service, the Marshals Service, and the City of New York can see to his security in this very secure federal courthouse,” Kaplan wrote in an order.

    Trump could still decide to attend the trial and testify. If he does not, the jury might be shown excerpts from his deposition, which was recorded on video.

    On Monday, Kaplan instructed lawyers on both sides not to say anything in front of prospective jurors Tuesday about who is paying legal fees.

    Earlier this month, the judge let Trump’s lawyers question Carroll for an extra hour after it was revealed that her lawyers had received funding from American Future Republic, an organization funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. In earlier questioning, Carroll said the lawyers were relying solely on contingency fees.

    The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll, Leeds and Stoynoff have done.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Actor Danny Masterson drugged, raped women, prosecutor says

    Actor Danny Masterson drugged, raped women, prosecutor says

    [ad_1]

    LOS ANGELES — Actor Danny Masterson drugged then raped three women at his Hollywood-area home between 2001 and 2003, a prosecutor told jurors Monday in his opening statement in the retrial of the star of “That ’70s Show.”

    Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller said Masterson put substances into drinks that he gave to a longtime girlfriend and two women he knew through friend circles around the Church of Scientology, all of whom Masterson is charged with raping.

    “The evidence will show that they were drugged,” Mueller told the jury. The defense denies such evidence exists.

    Direct discussion of drugging was missing from the first trial — which ended in a mistrial when a jury deadlocked on all three counts — with Mueller instead having to imply it through the testimony of the women, who said they were woozy, disoriented and at times unconscious on the nights they described the actor raping them.

    But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo is allowing the direct assertion at the second trial.

    Masterson’s attorney, Philip Cohen, said in the defense opening statement that those hazy stories and assertions are all the prosecution has, and he told jurors, “there is no drugging charge in this case.”

    Attorneys for both sides acknowledged that there is no forensic evidence of any substances Masterson may have given the women because the police investigation that led to the two trials did not begin until about 15 years after the events.

    But Mueller said he will call an analyst from the police toxicology unit, “who will tell you how some of the most common drug-facilitated sexual assaults, how some of the most common date rape drugs work, how quickly they’re metabolized, what side effects look like.”

    Cohen responded that “a toxicologist can come in opine to whatever they want, but there is no toxicology report, there’s no urine, no blood work, no DNA.”

    Cohen was not allowed to refer to testimony from the first trial — something Olmedo admonished him several times for doing — but he said he expected testimony this time would show that one of the women Masterson is charged with raping watched him make the allegedly drugged drink her gave her.

    Cohen told jurors that another of the women, a young actress who spent an evening alone with Masterson at his house in 2003, made no mention of drugging at the time.

    “She spoke to her mom about how her date with Masterson went, she spoke to her friends, she did not ever say to one person, ‘I was drugged.’ Never,” Cohen said.

    She would only mention thinking she had been drugged years later after the investigation began, Cohen said.

    This and many other similarities between the women’s stories come from them talking to each other and “cross-pollinating” the details of their accounts, something they did multiple times even after the detective in the case warned them that such communication could taint the case against Masterson, Cohen said.

    The drugging allegations had echoes of the trial of Bill Cosby, where women testified to similar experiences. Cosby’s conviction after two trials of his own was permanently thrown out by Pennsylvania’s highest court.

    The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

    Masterson, 47, could get 45 years in prison if convicted.

    Mueller also told jurors that the women did not immediately go to authorities because they were told not to by officials in the Church of Scientology, and they were told what happened to them was not rape.

    Masterson is a prominent member of the church. All three women are former members.

    The church said in a statement after the women’s testimony in the first trial that it “has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of Scientologists, or of anyone, to law enforcement.”

    In another difference from the first trial, Olmedo is allowing expert witnesses to testify on those policies.

    Cohen said that prosecution expert Claire Headley, a former member of the church’s leadership group, is someone who works “to rid the world of Scientology, rid people of Scientology,” and told jurors they were going to “hear tremendous bias” in her testimony. The expert on the defense witness list is her father-in-law, a current high-level Scientologist.

    Actor Leah Remini, a former Scientologist who has become the church’s most prominent detractor on social media and through a TV series she hosted featuring dissident ex-members, sat in the front row of the courtroom in support of Masterson’s accusers.

    Masterson, who has been free on bail since his 2020 arrest, sat at the defense table, with a large coterie of supporters behind him, many if not all church members, who also sat through his first trial. They included his wife, model and actor Bijou Phillips; his sister-in-law, “One Day at a Time” actor Mackenzie Phillips; and his brother, “Malcolm in the Middle” actor Christopher Masterson.

    ___

    Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Shannen Doherty files for divorce after 11-year marriage

    Shannen Doherty files for divorce after 11-year marriage

    [ad_1]

    Actor Shannen Doherty has filed for divorce from her husband, Kurt Iswarienko, after 11 years of marriage

    LOS ANGELES — Actor Shannen Doherty of hit shows “Charmed” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” has filed for divorce from her husband, Kurt Iswarienko, after 11 years of marriage, her representative says.

    “Divorce is the last thing Shannen wanted,” publicist Leslie Sloane said in an emailed statement Saturday. “Unfortunately, she felt she was left with no other option.”

    In early 2020, Doherty, now 52, announced that she was battling a recurrence of breast cancer that had progressed to stage four, calling it “a bitter pill to swallow.”

    “I definitely have days where I say, ‘Why me?’ And then I go, ‘Well, why not me? Who else? Who else besides me deserves this?’ None of us do,” Doherty told “Good Morning America.”

    The actor first revealed she had breast cancer in 2015 and has charted her battle with the disease on social media.

    Doherty did not refer to the divorce development on Instagram, but in a post Friday wrote: “The only people who deserve to be in your life are the ones who treat you with love, kindness and total respect.”

    In October 2021, a federal jury in Los Angeles awarded Doherty $6.3 million in a lawsuit alleging that State Farm, her insurance carrier, failed to pay sufficiently for damage to her house in a 2018 California wildfire. The jury found the failure to pay policy benefits for Doherty’s Malibu home “unreasonable and without proper cause.”

    In her statement, Sloane, Doherty’s publicist, suggested contacting Iswarienko’s agent for elaboration, whom she identified as Collier Grimm. Grimm did not immediately reply to a message for comment.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Florida eases path for death penalty after Parkland verdict

    Florida eases path for death penalty after Parkland verdict

    [ad_1]

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Thursday ending a unanimous jury requirement in death penalty sentencing, a response to a verdict that spared the life of a school shooter who killed 17 people.

    DeSantis, a Republican, signed the bill in a private ceremony with families of victims of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland.

    The new law, which went into effect as soon as the governor signed it, allows capital punishment in Florida with a jury recommendation of at least 8-4 in favor of execution. Only three states out of the 27 that impose the death penalty do not require unanimity. Alabama allows a 10-2 decision, and Missouri and Indiana let a judge decide when there is a divided jury.

    “Once a defendant in a capital case is found guilty by a unanimous jury, one juror should not be able to veto a capital sentence,” DeSantis said in a statement. “I’m proud to sign legislation that will prevent families from having to endure what the Parkland families have and ensure proper justice will be served in the state of Florida.”

    The governor pushed for the legislation after a divided 9-3 jury spared Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz from execution in a verdict last year that outraged victims’ families. Cruz instead received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

    “A few months ago, we endured another tragic failure of the justice system. Today’s change in Florida law will hopefully save other families from the injustices we have suffered,” said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter Alaina was killed in the shooting.

    The legislation easily passed in the Republican-dominated statehouse. Some Democratic critics had argued the state should not make it easier to send people to death row in reaction to the Cruz case.

    DeSantis, an expected presidential candidate, had included the legislation as part of a larger criminal justice package he described as a counter to the “soft on crime” policies in Democrat-led states, a move aimed at conservative voters who typically decide Republican primary contests.

    For decades, Florida had not required unanimity in capital punishment, allowing a judge to impose capital punishment as long as a majority of jurors were in favor of the penalty. But in 2016 the U.S. Supreme Court threw out state law, saying it allowed judges too much discretion.

    The state Legislature then passed a bill requiring a 10-2 jury recommendation, but the state Supreme Court said such recommendations should be unanimous, prompting lawmakers in 2017 to require a unanimous jury.

    Three years later, the state Supreme Court, with new conservative jurists appointed by DeSantis, rescinded its earlier decision and ruled that a death recommendation does not need to be unanimous. Florida’s unanimity standard had remained untouched, though there was no overwhelming desire to change state law before the Cruz case.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Last minute brinkmanship and overseas assist end Fox case

    Last minute brinkmanship and overseas assist end Fox case

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — Before pulling back from the brink of a trial, Fox News and Dominion Voting systems faced a stern deadline — not from an impatient judge or jury, but from a man on a Danube River cruise with his wife half a world away.

    A mediator hired late Sunday pushed the two sides toward a $787 million settlement that brought a stunning end to the most-watched media libel case in decades, one that sought to put a price on lies told about the 2020 presidential election on conservative America’s most popular news outlet.

    “It’s a deadline that I always impose because I know that once a jury is empaneled and opening statements are made, then one or other of the parties will dig into their positions,” Jerry Roscoe, of the Washington-based JAMS mediation service, said Wednesday. “It makes negotiations much more difficult.”

    As the haggling went on, over the phone and in back rooms of a Delaware courthouse, lawyers, journalists and spectators waited as a scheduled 1:30 p.m. start of the trial came and went Tuesday.

    Finally, two minutes before 4 p.m., Superior Court Judge Eric Davis emerged with an almost matter-of-fact announcement, given the stakes.

    “The parties have resolved their case,” he said.

    It was a settlement months in the making, since the Colorado-based voting technology firm sued Fox for $1.6 billion, alleging its business was harmed and employees threatened when it was baselessly accused of rigging its voting machines against former President Donald Trump in 2020.

    In the two months prior to the scheduled start of the trial, a mountain of evidence — some damning, some merely embarrassing — showed many Fox executives and on-air talent didn’t believe allegations aired mostly on shows hosted by Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro. At the time, they feared angering Trump fans in the audience with the truth.

    Davis had ordered the two sides to try to mediate their differences last December, but it was a non-starter for Dominion. The company didn’t want the case to end without all of the evidence it had gathered made public. That happened through February and March, with document dumps that essentially outlined the case Dominion would have presented at trial.

    “That was something we had committed to from the beginning,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “We had complete support with our partners, and it’s something that we owed to our customers.”

    Fox had argued that it was airing newsworthy allegations made by Trump aides, and that Dominion’s case was an attack on press freedom.

    Libel is tough to prove — a jury must find journalists knowingly published false information or with a “reckless disregard” for the truth. Yet Fox’s path to victory narrowed, both through the evidence presented and rulings by Davis, who said that the allegations against Dominion were unquestionably false, and that newsworthiness was no defense against defamation.

    Attorneys for both sides, Justin Nelson for Dominion and Dan Webb for Fox, quietly began to seek a deal before trial. With the two sides far apart, they reached out to mediator Roscoe, then cruising between Budapest and Bucharest with his wife. He agreed to take the case on, using much of Monday to read through the evidence.

    “My job is to create options and to give them choices,” Roscoe said.

    He spoke on the phone constantly from the boat, mostly with lawyers other than Nelson and Webb Tuesday, as they were preparing for opening statements, and principals like Poulos, ensconced in a conference room at the courthouse.

    Davis gave the two sides Monday off to talk. On Tuesday morning, a jury was selected that included five Black men, four white women, two Black women and one white man. It was a majority Black jury deciding the financial fate of a network whose audience is 94% white and 1% Black, according to the Nielsen company.

    Jury selection can be a key moment in pushing two sides toward a last-minute settlement, said Lee Levine, a veteran First Amendment attorney.

    There’s a strong possibility that “Fox had decided to wait and see what kind of jury it drew and to see if they had a couple of people on the jury they had good feelings about being holdouts,” Levine said.

    Fox privately resisted the idea that jury selection was key to a deal, saying instead that there were complicated negotiations that had to play out.

    Meanwhile, after a lunch break, people returned to a courtroom cluttered with boxes filled with evidence. Webb spoke on a cellphone and approached Nelson to quietly talk more than once. At one point, Webb was seen walking out of the courtroom with a wide smile on his face.

    Levine was walking on a beach in North Carolina with his wife, wearing ear buds to catch the audio feed of opening statements. When court hadn’t resumed by 2:30 p.m., his instincts told him that a settlement was near.

    When did Roscoe have that feeling?

    “When it came together and not a moment before,” the mediator said. “The parties had different analyses of the law and the facts and were vigorous advocates for their positions all along the negotiations.”

    The agreement was reached before 3 p.m. in Delaware, or 10 p.m. on Roscoe’s boat.

    The negotiations were primarily financial. Fox had issued a public statement Monday saying that Dominion had reduced its estimate of damages by $600 million. Dominion disputed that, but the eventual deal was closer to what Fox said was the adjusted figure.

    Some Fox critics were angry about the deal, wanting instead to see a trial with Fox figures forced to testify in public, or at least Fox personalities compelled to apologize to Dominion on the air.

    Instead, Fox issued a statement that said it acknowledged Davis’ findings that “certain claims about Dominion” were false. “This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” Fox said.

    Levine sees it this way: “At the end of the day I think a reasonable reading of what happened was there was a line that Fox wouldn’t cross or couldn’t cross because of their business model.”

    “They couldn’t have their anchors go on the air and tell (viewers) they lied to them,” he said.

    “I don’t think a forced apology is worth a nickel,” said Stephen Shackelford, Dominion’s co-lead counsel. He said that following a legal threat in December 2020 by another technology firm, Smartmatic, Fox aired an interview with an election expert debunking fraud claims, and it had little effect on Fox’s audience or how Fox operated.

    Smartmatic has a pending lawsuit against Fox that is similar to Dominion’s.

    “You can’t change their culture and approach from the outside,” Shackelford said. “They have to do it themselves.”

    Asked for comment, Fox said the company has expanded its newsgathering capabilities both domestically and abroad, and has added other resources to enhance coverage.

    “We’re confident of the editorial systems we have in place,” Fox said.

    In making the deal, Poulos said he had to take into account employees and customers who had suffered from harassment following the false claims. He noted that Fox had acknowledged the court’s rulings that the allegations were false.

    Given the challenges he faced trying to bring Fox and Dominion together with their disputes over the facts and legal theory, Roscoe said it’s one of the most meaningful cases he’s worked on in his career. His wife may insist upon another vacation, though.

    “She was probably on the Internet looking for another husband,” he joked.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Last minute brinkmanship and overseas assist end Fox case

    Last minute brinkmanship and overseas assist end Fox case

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — Before pulling back from the brink of a trial, Fox News and Dominion Voting systems faced a stern deadline — not from an impatient judge or jury, but from a man on a Danube River cruise with his wife half a world away.

    A mediator hired late Sunday pushed the two sides toward a $787 million settlement that brought a stunning end to the most-watched media libel case in decades, one that sought to put a price on lies told about the 2020 presidential election on conservative America’s most popular news outlet.

    “It’s a deadline that I always impose because I know that once a jury is empaneled and opening statements are made, then one or other of the parties will dig into their positions,” Jerry Roscoe, of the Washington-based JAMS mediation service, said Wednesday. “It makes negotiations much more difficult.”

    As the haggling went on, over the phone and in back rooms of a Delaware courthouse, lawyers, journalists and spectators waited as a scheduled 1:30 p.m. start of the trial came and went Tuesday.

    Finally, two minutes before 4 p.m., Superior Court Judge Eric Davis emerged with an almost matter-of-fact announcement, given the stakes.

    “The parties have resolved their case,” he said.

    It was a settlement months in the making, since the Colorado-based voting technology firm sued Fox for $1.6 billion, alleging its business was harmed and employees threatened when it was baselessly accused of rigging its voting machines against former President Donald Trump in 2020.

    In the two months prior to the scheduled start of the trial, a mountain of evidence — some damning, some merely embarrassing — showed many Fox executives and on-air talent didn’t believe allegations aired mostly on shows hosted by Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro. At the time, they feared angering Trump fans in the audience with the truth.

    Davis had ordered the two sides to try to mediate their differences last December, but it was a non-starter for Dominion. The company didn’t want the case to end without all of the evidence it had gathered made public. That happened through February and March, with document dumps that essentially outlined the case Dominion would have presented at trial.

    “That was something we had committed to from the beginning,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “We had complete support with our partners, and it’s something that we owed to our customers.”

    Fox had argued that it was airing newsworthy allegations made by Trump aides, and that Dominion’s case was an attack on press freedom.

    Libel is tough to prove — a jury must find journalists knowingly published false information or with a “reckless disregard” for the truth. Yet Fox’s path to victory narrowed, both through the evidence presented and rulings by Davis, who said that the allegations against Dominion were unquestionably false, and that newsworthiness was no defense against defamation.

    Attorneys for both sides, Justin Nelson for Dominion and Dan Webb for Fox, quietly began to seek a deal before trial. With the two sides far apart, they reached out to mediator Roscoe, then cruising between Budapest and Bucharest with his wife. He agreed to take the case on, using much of Monday to read through the evidence.

    “My job is to create options and to give them choices,” Roscoe said.

    He spoke on the phone constantly from the boat, mostly with lawyers other than Nelson and Webb Tuesday, as they were preparing for opening statements, and principals like Poulos, ensconced in a conference room at the courthouse.

    Davis gave the two sides Monday off to talk. On Tuesday morning, a jury was selected that included five Black men, four white women, two Black women and one white man. It was a majority Black jury deciding the financial fate of a network whose audience is 94% white and 1% Black, according to the Nielsen company.

    Jury selection can be a key moment in pushing two sides toward a last-minute settlement, said Lee Levine, a veteran First Amendment attorney.

    There’s a strong possibility that “Fox had decided to wait and see what kind of jury it drew and to see if they had a couple of people on the jury they had good feelings about being holdouts,” Levine said.

    Fox privately resisted the idea that jury selection was key to a deal, saying instead that there were complicated negotiations that had to play out.

    Meanwhile, after a lunch break, people returned to a courtroom cluttered with boxes filled with evidence. Webb spoke on a cellphone and approached Nelson to quietly talk more than once. At one point, Webb was seen walking out of the courtroom with a wide smile on his face.

    Levine was walking on a beach in North Carolina with his wife, wearing ear buds to catch the audio feed of opening statements. When court hadn’t resumed by 2:30 p.m., his instincts told him that a settlement was near.

    When did Roscoe have that feeling?

    “When it came together and not a moment before,” the mediator said. “The parties had different analyses of the law and the facts and were vigorous advocates for their positions all along the negotiations.”

    The agreement was reached before 3 p.m. in Delaware, or 10 p.m. on Roscoe’s boat.

    The negotiations were primarily financial. Fox had issued a public statement Monday saying that Dominion had reduced its estimate of damages by $600 million. Dominion disputed that, but the eventual deal was closer to what Fox said was the adjusted figure.

    Some Fox critics were angry about the deal, wanting instead to see a trial with Fox figures forced to testify in public, or at least Fox personalities compelled to apologize to Dominion on the air.

    Instead, Fox issued a statement that said it acknowledged Davis’ findings that “certain claims about Dominion” were false. “This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” Fox said.

    Levine sees it this way: “At the end of the day I think a reasonable reading of what happened was there was a line that Fox wouldn’t cross or couldn’t cross because of their business model.”

    “They couldn’t have their anchors go on the air and tell (viewers) they lied to them,” he said.

    “I don’t think a forced apology is worth a nickel,” said Stephen Shackelford, Dominion’s co-lead counsel. He said that following a legal threat in December 2020 by another technology firm, Smartmatic, Fox aired an interview with an election expert debunking fraud claims, and it had little effect on Fox’s audience or how Fox operated.

    Smartmatic has a pending lawsuit against Fox that is similar to Dominion’s.

    “You can’t change their culture and approach from the outside,” Shackelford said. “They have to do it themselves.”

    Asked for comment, Fox said the company has expanded its newsgathering capabilities both domestically and abroad, and has added other resources to enhance coverage.

    “We’re confident of the editorial systems we have in place,” Fox said.

    In making the deal, Poulos said he had to take into account employees and customers who had suffered from harassment following the false claims. He noted that Fox had acknowledged the court’s rulings that the allegations were false.

    Given the challenges he faced trying to bring Fox and Dominion together with their disputes over the facts and legal theory, Roscoe said it’s one of the most meaningful cases he’s worked on in his career. His wife may insist upon another vacation, though.

    “She was probably on the Internet looking for another husband,” he joked.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Silicon Valley councilman defers plea on 49ers report leak

    Silicon Valley councilman defers plea on 49ers report leak

    [ad_1]

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Silicon Valley councilmember delayed entering his pleas Monday on criminal charges for allegedly lying about leaking a grand jury report on the San Francisco 49ers’ political influence and relationships with the city’s elected officials.

    Santa Clara City Councilmember Anthony Becker will next appear in court May 3 and he remains out of custody in the meantime. He faces up to four years in county jail if he is convicted of perjury.

    Becker, a Democrat, was indicted Friday for allegedly providing a secret report titled, “Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Santa Clara City Council,” to the team’s former top spokesperson and a local news outlet in 2022, days ahead of its official release. The report called Becker and four other Santa Clara councilmembers the “49er Five” and claimed the five elected officials met regularly with the team’s lobbyists without publicly disclosing the topics of discussion. It also alleged the councilmembers regularly voted “in a manner that is favorable to the 49ers.”

    Becker then allegedly lied to the grand jury about the leak, prosecutors said, prompting the felony criminal charge. He also faces a misdemeanor for leaking the confidential report.

    Becker declined to comment when reached by phone Monday. Christopher Montoya, the public defender representing him, did not immediately respond to phone and text messages seeking comment.

    Outside the courthouse, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said Becker was favoring special interests above his constituents.

    “When you leak a confidential report to the target of that report, you’re taking sides against Santa Clara County,” he said. “When you do both of those things — leak and lie — as an elected official, who’s sworn to protect and defend the interest of your constituents before and above your private interests, you have violated everyone’s trust and broken the law.”

    Rosen also called on the 49ers to apologize.

    The 49ers play in Levi’s Stadium in the city of Santa Clara, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of San Francisco. Santa Clara County is broadly considered home to Silicon Valley. The city of Santa Clara owns the stadium and leases it to the team; fighting between the two groups has led to ethics complaints, legal disputes and years of bad blood.

    It’s not the first time a California elected official faces scrutiny over their involvement with professional sports teams. Former Mayor Harry Sidhu of the Southern California city of Anaheim resigned last year after federal officials launched an investigation into the sale of Angel Stadium to the baseball team. Sidhu allegedly gave confidential information to the Angels at least twice during negotiations in hopes of getting a campaign donation.

    The 49ers have bankrolled Becker’s local political career by spending at least $3.2 million through independent expenditure committees for his 2020 city council race, which he won, as well as his unsuccessful 2022 mayoral bid, prosecutors said. Santa Clara City Mayor Lisa Gillmor, a vocal critic of the team, did not respond to requests for comment.

    The 49ers have “cooperated fully” with the district attorney, Brian Brokaw, a newly hired spokesperson for the team, said Friday. He declined to comment further Monday on Becker’s court appearance. Brokaw is a well-known Sacramento consultant who has worked for prominent California politicians including Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Judge delays trial over Fox News and 2020 election lies

    Judge delays trial over Fox News and 2020 election lies

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — Without citing a reason, the Delaware judge overseeing a voting machine company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News announced late Sunday that he was delaying the start of the trial until Tuesday.

    The trial, which has drawn international interest, had been scheduled to start Monday morning with jury selection and opening statements.

    The case centers on whether Fox defamed Dominion Voting Systems by spreading false claims that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election to prevent former President Donald Trump’s reelection. Records produced as part of the lawsuit show that many of the network’s hosts and executives didn’t believe the allegations but aired them, anyway.

    Claire Bischoff, a Dominion spokesperson, said the company would have no comment on the trial delay, as did Fox Corp., which is being sued along with Fox News. Representatives of the network did not return a request for comment.

    In his statement, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said only that the trial, including jury selection, would be continued until Tuesday and that he would announce the delay in court on Monday.

    That’s when Fox News executives and the network’s star hosts were scheduled to begin answering for their role in spreading doubt about the 2020 presidential election and creating the gaping wound that remains in America’s democracy.

    Jurors hearing the $1.6 billion lawsuit filed against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems would have to answer a specific question: Did Fox defame the voting machine company by airing bogus stories alleging that the election was rigged against then-President Donald Trump, even as many at the network privately doubted the false claims being pushed by Trump and his allies?

    Yet the broader context looms large. A trial would test press freedom and the reputation of conservatives’ favorite news source. It also would illuminate the flow of misinformation that helped spark the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and continues to fuel Trump’s hopes to regain power in 2024.

    Fox News stars Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and founder Rupert Murdoch are among the people who had been expected to testify.

    Barring a settlement, opening statements are now scheduled for Tuesday.

    “This is Christmas Eve for defamation scholars,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a University of Utah law professor.

    If the trial were a sporting event, Fox News would be taking the field on a losing streak, with key players injured and having just alienated the referee. Pretrial court rulings and embarrassing revelations about its biggest names have Fox on its heels.

    Court papers released over the past two months show Fox executives, producers and personalities privately disbelieved Trump’s claims of a fraudulent election. But Dominion says Fox News was afraid of alienating its audience with the truth, particularly after many viewers were angered by the network’s decision to declare Democrat Joe Biden the winner in Arizona on election night in November 2020.

    Some rulings by the judge have eased Dominion’s path. In a summary judgment, Davis said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that fraud allegations against the company were false. That means trial time won’t have to be spent disproving them at a time when millions of Republicans continue to doubt the 2020 results.

    Davis said it also is clear that Dominion’s reputation was damaged, but that it would be up to a jury to decide whether Fox acted with “actual malice” — the legal standard — and, if so, what that’s worth financially.

    Fox witnesses would likely testify that they thought the allegations against Dominion were newsworthy, but Davis made it clear that’s not a defense against defamation.

    New York law protects news outlets from defamation for expressions of opinion. But Davis methodically went through 20 different times on Fox when allegations against Dominion were discussed, ruling that all of them were fully or partly considered statements of fact, and fair game for a potential libel finding.

    “A lawsuit is a little bit like hitting a home run,” said Cary Coglianese, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “You have to go through all of the bases to get there.” The judge’s rulings “basically give Dominion a spot at third base, and all they have to do is come home to win it.”

    Both Fox and Dominion are incorporated in Delaware, though Fox News is headquartered in New York and Dominion is based in Denver.

    Fox angered Davis this past week when the judge said the network’s lawyers delayed producing evidence and were not forthcoming in revealing Murdoch’s role at Fox News. A Fox lawyer, Blake Rohrbacher, sent a letter of apology to Davis on Friday, saying it was a misunderstanding and not an intention to deceive.

    It’s not clear whether that would affect a trial. But it’s generally not wise to have a judge wonder at the outset of a trial whether your side is telling the truth, particularly when truth is the central point of the case, Jones said.

    The lawsuit essentially comes down to whether Dominion can prove Fox acted with actual malice by putting something on the air knowing that it was false or acting with a “reckless disregard” for whether it was true. In most libel cases, that is the most difficult hurdle for plaintiffs to get past.

    Dominion can point to many examples where Fox figures didn’t believe the charges being made by Trump allies such as Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani. But Fox says many of those disbelievers were not in a position to decide when to air those allegations.

    “We think it’s essential for them to connect those dots,” Fox lawyer Erin Murphy said.

    If the case goes to trial, the jury will determine whether a powerful figure like Murdoch — who testified in a deposition that he didn’t believe the election-fraud charges — had the influence to keep the accusations off the air.

    “Credibility is always important in any trial in any case. But it’s going to be really important in this case,” said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota.

    Kirtley is concerned that the suit may eventually advance to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could use it as a pretext to weaken the actual malice standard that was set in a 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. That, she feels, would be disastrous for journalists.

    Dominion’s lawsuit is being closely watched by another voting-technology company with a separate but similar case against Fox News. Florida-based Smartmatic has looked to some rulings and evidence in the Dominion case to try to enhance its own $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit in New York. The Smartmatic case isn’t yet ready for trial but has survived Fox News’ effort to get it tossed out.

    Many experts are surprised Fox and Dominion have not reached an out-of-court settlement, though they can at any time. There’s presumably a wide financial gulf. In court papers, Fox contends the $1.6 billion damages claim is a wild overestimate.

    Dominion’s motivation may also be to inflict maximum embarrassment on Fox with the peek into the network’s internal communications following the election. Text messages from January 2021 revealed Carlson telling a friend that he passionately hated Trump and couldn’t wait to move on.

    Dominion may also seek an apology.

    The trial has had no apparent effect on Fox News’ viewership; it remains the top-rated cable network. And there is little indication that the case has changed Fox’s editorial direction. Fox has embraced Trump once again in recent weeks following the former president’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, and Carlson presented an alternate history of Capitol riot, based on tapes given to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Randall Chase in Dover, Del., and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Judge delays start of Fox News defamation trial until Tuesday

    Judge delays start of Fox News defamation trial until Tuesday

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — The Delaware judge overseeing a voting machine company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News announced late Sunday that he was delaying the start of the trial until Tuesday. He did not cite a reason.

    The trial, which has drawn international interest, had been scheduled to start Monday morning with jury selection and opening statements.

    The case centers on whether Fox defamed Dominion Voting Systems by spreading false claims that the company rigged the 2020 presidential election to prevent former President Donald Trump’s reelection. Records produced as part of the lawsuit show that many of the network’s hosts and executives didn’t believe the allegations but aired them, anyway.

    Representatives for Dominion and for the two entities it’s suing — Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp.
    FOX,
    -1.35%
    — did not immediately return requests for comment on the delay. In his statement, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said only that the trial, including jury selection, would be continued until Tuesday and that he would announce the delay in court on Monday.

    That’s when Fox News executives and the network’s star hosts were scheduled to begin answering for their role in spreading doubt about the 2020 presidential election and creating the gaping wound that remains in America’s democracy.

    Jurors hearing the $1.6 billion lawsuit filed against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems would have to answer a specific question: Did Fox defame the voting machine company by airing bogus stories alleging that the election was rigged against then-President Donald Trump, even as many at the network privately doubted the false claims being pushed by Trump and his allies?

    Yet the broader context looms large. A trial would test press freedom and the reputation of conservatives’ favorite news source. It also would illuminate the flow of misinformation that helped spark the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and continues to fuel Trump’s hopes to regain power in 2024.

    Fox News stars Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and founder Rupert Murdoch are among the people who had been expected to testify.

    Barring a settlement, opening statements are now scheduled for Tuesday.

    “This is Christmas Eve for defamation scholars,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a University of Utah law professor.

    If the trial were a sporting event, Fox News would be taking the field on a losing streak, with key players injured and having just alienated the referee. Pretrial court rulings and embarrassing revelations about its biggest names have Fox on its heels.

    Court papers released over the past two months show Fox executives, producers and personalities privately disbelieved Trump’s claims of a fraudulent election. But Dominion says Fox News was afraid of alienating its audience with the truth, particularly after many viewers were angered by the network’s decision to declare Democrat Joe Biden the winner in Arizona on election night in November 2020.

    Some rulings by the judge have eased Dominion’s path. In a summary judgment, Davis said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that fraud allegations against the company were false. That means trial time won’t have to be spent disproving them at a time when millions of Republicans continue to doubt the 2020 results.

    Davis said it also is clear that Dominion’s reputation was damaged, but that it would be up to a jury to decide whether Fox acted with “actual malice” — the legal standard — and, if so, what that’s worth financially.

    Fox witnesses would likely testify that they thought the allegations against Dominion were newsworthy, but Davis made it clear that’s not a defense against defamation.

    New York law protects news outlets from defamation for expressions of opinion. But Davis methodically went through 20 different times on Fox when allegations against Dominion were discussed, ruling that all of them were fully or partly considered statements of fact, and fair game for a potential libel finding.

    “A lawsuit is a little bit like hitting a home run,” said Cary Coglianese, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “You have to go through all of the bases to get there.” The judge’s rulings “basically give Dominion a spot at third base, and all they have to do is come home to win it.”

    Both Fox and Dominion are incorporated in Delaware, though Fox News is headquartered in New York and Dominion is based in Denver.

    Fox angered Davis this past week when the judge said the network’s lawyers delayed producing evidence and were not forthcoming in revealing Murdoch’s role at Fox News. A Fox lawyer, Blake Rohrbacher, sent a letter of apology to Davis on Friday, saying it was a misunderstanding and not an intention to deceive.

    It’s not clear whether that would affect a trial. But it’s generally not wise to have a judge wonder at the outset of a trial whether your side is telling the truth, particularly when truth is the central point of the case, Jones said.

    The lawsuit essentially comes down to whether Dominion can prove Fox acted with actual malice by putting something on the air knowing that it was false or acting with a “reckless disregard” for whether it was true. In most libel cases, that is the most difficult hurdle for plaintiffs to get past.

    Dominion can point to many examples where Fox figures didn’t believe the charges being made by Trump allies such as Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani. But Fox says many of those disbelievers were not in a position to decide when to air those allegations.

    “We think it’s essential for them to connect those dots,” Fox lawyer Erin Murphy said.

    If the case goes to trial, the jury will determine whether a powerful figure like Murdoch — who testified in a deposition that he didn’t believe the election-fraud charges — had the influence to keep the accusations off the air.

    “Credibility is always important in any trial in any case. But it’s going to be really important in this case,” said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota.

    Kirtley is concerned that the suit may eventually advance to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could use it as a pretext to weaken the actual malice standard that was set in a 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. That, she feels, would be disastrous for journalists.

    Dominion’s lawsuit is being closely watched by another voting-technology company with a separate but similar case against Fox News. Florida-based Smartmatic has looked to some rulings and evidence in the Dominion case to try to enhance its own $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit in New York. The Smartmatic case isn’t yet ready for trial but has survived Fox News’ effort to get it tossed out.

    Many experts are surprised Fox and Dominion have not reached an out-of-court settlement, though they can at any time. There’s presumably a wide financial gulf. In court papers, Fox contends the $1.6 billion damages claim is a wild overestimate.

    Dominion’s motivation may also be to inflict maximum embarrassment on Fox with the peek into the network’s internal communications following the election. Text messages from January 2021 revealed Carlson telling a friend that he passionately hated Trump and couldn’t wait to move on.

    Dominion may also seek an apology.

    The trial has had no apparent effect on Fox News’ viewership; it remains the top-rated cable network. Fox’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz, said earlier this year that he had been banned from covering the lawsuit, but the network has since changed direction. Kurtz discussed the case on his show Sunday, saying he would be in Wilmington for the beginning of the trial.

    “The real potential danger is if Fox viewers get the sense that they’ve been lied to. There’s a real downside there,” said Charlie Sykes, founder of the Bulwark website and an MSNBC contributor.

    There’s little indication that the case has changed Fox’s editorial direction. Fox has embraced Trump once again in recent weeks following the former president’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, and Carlson presented an alternate history of Capitol riot, based on tapes given to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

    Just because there has been limited discussion of the Dominion suit on Fox doesn’t mean its fans are unaware of it, said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative watchdog Media Research Center.

    “There’s a certain amount of tribal reaction to this,” Graham said. “When all of the other networks are thrilling to revealing text messages and emails, they see this as the latest attempt by the liberal media to undermine Fox News. There’s going to be a rally-around-Rupert effect.”

    Fox Corp. and MarketWatch parent News Corp. share common ownership.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Fox News and 2020 election lies set to face jury come Monday

    Fox News and 2020 election lies set to face jury come Monday

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — Starting Monday in a courtroom in Delaware, Fox News executives and stars will have to answer for their role in spreading doubt about the 2020 presidential election and creating the gaping wound that remains in America’s democracy.

    Jurors hearing the $1.6 billion lawsuit filed against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems must answer a specific question: Did Fox defame the voting machine company by airing bogus stories alleging that the election was rigged against then-President Donald Trump, even as many at the network privately doubted the false claims being pushed by Trump and his allies?

    Yet the broader context looms large. The trial will test press freedom and the reputation of conservatives’ favorite news source. It will also illuminate the flow of misinformation that helped spark the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and continues to fuel Trump’s hopes to regain power in 2024.

    Fox News stars Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and founder Rupert Murdoch are among the people expected to testify over the next few weeks.

    Barring a last-minute settlement, opening statements are scheduled for Monday.

    “This is Christmas Eve for defamation scholars,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a University of Utah law professor.

    If the trial were a sporting event, Fox News would be taking the field on a losing streak, with key players injured and having just alienated the referee. Pretrial court rulings and embarrassing revelations about its biggest names have Fox on its heels.

    Court papers released over the past two months show Fox executives, producers and personalities privately disbelieved Trump’s claims of a fraudulent election. But Dominion says Fox News was afraid of alienating its audience with the truth, particularly after many viewers were angered by the network’s decision to declare Democrat Joe Biden the winner in Arizona on election night in November 2020.

    Some rulings by the presiding judge, Eric Davis, have eased Dominion’s path. In a summary judgment, Davis said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that fraud allegations against the company were false. That means trial time won’t have to be spent disproving them at a time when millions of Republicans continue to doubt the 2020 results.

    Davis said it also is clear that Dominion’s reputation was damaged, but it will be up a jury to decide whether Fox acted with “actual malice” — the legal standard — and, if so, what that’s worth financially.

    Fox witnesses will likely testify that they thought the allegations against Dominion were newsworthy, but Davis made it clear that’s not a defense against defamation — and he will make sure the jury knows that.

    New York law protects news outlets from defamation for expressions of opinion. But Davis methodically went through 20 different times on Fox when allegations against Dominion were discussed, ruling that all of them were fully or partly considered statements of fact, and fair game for a potential libel finding.

    “A lawsuit is a little bit like hitting a home run,” said Cary Coglianese, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “You have to go through all of the bases to get there.” The judge’s rulings “basically give Dominion a spot at third base, and all they have to do is come home to win it.”

    Both Fox and Dominion are incorporated in Delaware, though Fox News is headquartered in New York and Dominion is based in Denver.

    Fox angered Davis this past week when the judge said the network’s lawyers delayed producing evidence and were not forthcoming in revealing Murdoch’s role at Fox News.

    It’s not clear whether that will affect the trial. But it’s generally not wise to have a judge wonder at the outset of a trial whether your side is telling the truth, particularly when truth is the central point of the case, Jones said.

    The suit essentially comes down to whether Dominion can prove Fox acted with actual malice by putting something on the air knowing that it knew was false or acting with a “reckless disregard” for whether it was true.

    Dominion can point to many examples where Fox figures didn’t believe the charges being made by Trump allies such as Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani. But Fox says many of those disbelievers were not in a position to decide when to air those allegations.

    “We think it’s essential for them to connect those dots,” Fox lawyer Erin Murphy said.

    The jury will determine whether a powerful figure like Murdoch — who testified in a deposition that he didn’t believe the election-fraud charges — had the influence to keep the accusations off the air.

    “Credibility is always important in any trial in any case. But it’s going to be really important in this case,” said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota.

    Kirtley is concerned that the suit may eventually advance to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could use it as a pretext to weaken the actual malice standard that was set in a 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. That, she feels, would be disastrous for journalists.

    Dominion’s lawsuit is being closely watched by another voting-technology company with a separate but similar case against Fox News. Florida-based Smartmatic has looked to some rulings and evidence in the Dominion case to try to enhance its own $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit in New York. The Smartmatic case isn’t yet ready for trial but has survived Fox News’ effort to get it tossed out.

    Many experts are surprised Fox and Dominion have not reached an out-of-court settlement, though they can at any time. There’s presumably a wide financial gulf. In court papers, Fox contends the $1.6 billion damages claim is a wild overestimate.

    Dominion’s motivation may also be to inflict maximum embarrassment on Fox with the peek into the network’s internal communications following the election. Text messages from January 2021 revealed Carlson telling a friend that he passionately hated Trump and couldn’t wait to move on.

    Dominion may also seek an apology.

    How Fox viewers are reacting is an open question. Fox has placed a near-total ban on discussing the lawsuit on its TV network or website.

    “The real potential danger is if Fox viewers get the sense that they’ve been lied to. There’s a real downside there,” said Charlie Sykes, founder of the Bulwark website and an MSNBC contributor.

    There’s little indication that the case has changed Fox’s editorial direction or cut into its viewership. Fox has embraced Trump once again in recent weeks following the former president’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, and Carlson presented an alternate history of Capitol riot, based on tapes given to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

    Just because Fox hasn’t discussed the Dominion lawsuit on the air doesn’t mean its fans are unaware of it, said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative watchdog Media Research Center.

    “There’s a certain amount of tribal reaction to this,” Graham said. “When all of the other networks are thrilling to revealing text messages and emails, they see this as the latest attempt by the liberal media to undermine Fox News. There’s going to be a rally-around-Rupert effect.”

    The trial is expected to last into late May.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Silicon Valley councilman indicted in 49ers report leak

    Silicon Valley councilman indicted in 49ers report leak

    [ad_1]

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Silicon Valley city councilman has been charged with perjury after he allegedly lied about leaking a grand jury report to the San Francisco 49ers last year that detailed a purportedly unethical relationship between the team and the city council, prosecutors said Friday.

    Santa Clara City Councilmember Anthony Becker is accused of providing the secret report titled “Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Santa Clara City Council” to the team’s former top spokesperson and a local media outlet in 2022, days ahead of its official release.

    Becker then allegedly lied to the grand jury about the leak, prosecutors said, prompting the criminal charges.

    The 49ers play in Levi’s Stadium in the city of Santa Clara, about 35 miles (56.33 kilometers) south of San Francisco. Santa Clara County is broadly considered home to Silicon Valley.

    The city of Santa Clara owns the stadium and leases it to the team; fighting between the two groups has led to ethics complaints, legal disputes and years of bad blood.

    Al Guido, the team’s president, and Larry MacNeil, the former CFO who worked extensively on the team’s stadium project, were named in the indictment as witnesses who spoke to the criminal grand jury for Becker’s indictment.

    “The 49ers have cooperated fully with the District Attorney’s Office in their investigation, and will continue to do so,” team spokesperson Brian Brokaw said in a statement Friday. “However, because this is an ongoing legal matter, the organization is not able to make any further comment at this time.”

    Prosecutors say the team has bankrolled Becker’s political career by spending $3.2 million through independent expenditure committees for his 2020 city council race, which he won, as well as his unsuccessful 2022 mayoral bid.

    The “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” report alleged that Becker and four other councilmembers regularly voted “in a manner that is favorable to the 49ers” and would routinely meet with the team’s lobbyists but not disclose what was discussed.

    Becker faces a felony charge of perjury under oath, as well as a misdemeanor charge of willful failure to perform duty. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

    Becker did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday, and it was not clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

    “Councilmember Becker violated the public’s trust,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “That an elected official would commit perjury and lie under oath before the grand jury strikes at the very heart of our justice system and requires accountability.”

    Representatives for the Santa Clara City Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Silicon Valley councilman indicted in 49ers report leak

    Silicon Valley councilman indicted in 49ers report leak

    [ad_1]

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Silicon Valley city councilman has been charged with perjury after he allegedly lied about leaking a grand jury report to the San Francisco 49ers last year that detailed a purportedly unethical relationship between the team and the city council, prosecutors said Friday.

    Santa Clara City Councilmember Anthony Becker is accused of providing the secret report titled “Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Santa Clara City Council” to the team’s former top spokesperson and a local media outlet in 2022, days ahead of its official release.

    Becker then allegedly lied to the grand jury about the leak, prosecutors said, prompting the criminal charges.

    The 49ers play in Levi’s Stadium in the city of Santa Clara, about 35 miles (56.33 kilometers) south of San Francisco. The city owns the stadium and leases it to the team; fighting between the two groups has led to ethics complaints, legal disputes and years of bad blood.

    Al Guido, the team’s president, and Larry MacNeil, the former CFO who worked extensively on the team’s stadium project, were named in the indictment as witnesses who spoke to the criminal grand jury.

    “The 49ers have cooperated fully with the District Attorney’s Office in their investigation, and will continue to do so,” team spokesperson Brian Brokaw said in a statement Friday. “However, because this is an ongoing legal matter, the organization is not able to make any further comment at this time.”

    Prosecutors say the team has bankrolled Becker’s political career by spending $3.2 million through independent expenditure committees for his 2020 city council race, which he won, as well as his unsuccessful 2022 mayoral bid.

    The “Unsportsmanlike Conduct” report alleged that Becker and four other councilmembers regularly voted “in a manner that is favorable to the 49ers” and would routinely meet with the team’s lobbyists but not disclose what was discussed.

    Becker faces a felony charge of perjury under oath, as well as a misdemeanor charge of willful failure to perform duty. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

    Becker did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday, and it was not clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

    “Councilmember Becker violated the public’s trust,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “That an elected official would commit perjury and lie under oath before the grand jury strikes at the very heart of our justice system and requires accountability.”

    Representatives for the Santa Clara City Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Santa Clara County is broadly considered home to Silicon Valley.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Jury selection begins in defamation lawsuit against Fox News

    Jury selection begins in defamation lawsuit against Fox News

    [ad_1]

    Jury selection has begun behind closed doors in a defamation lawsuit seeking to hold Fox News responsible for repeatedly airing false claims related to the 2020 presidential election

    ByRANDALL CHASE Associated Press

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Jury selection began behind closed doors Thursday in a defamation lawsuit seeking to hold Fox News responsible for repeatedly airing false claims related to the 2020 presidential election.

    Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis previously made clear that the selection would be done out of public view to ensure the privacy and safety of potential jurors.

    “Because of the nature of the case and under the statute, I can take those steps to protect jurors,” the judge said Thursday, noting that the case has received international attention.

    “I need to make sure that the jury remains unaffected by this,” Davis added.

    Jury selection in Delaware is usually done in public but occasionally is closed to protect jurors, such as in high-profile criminal cases or those involving alleged gang activity.

    The judge met privately with potential jurors and handed out forms asking several routine questions, including whether those in the jury pool have ever worked for Fox or Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based voting machine company that filed the defamation lawsuit.

    He began Thursday’s proceeding by denying a request by certain media outlets for permission to record and rebroadcast a live audio feed of the trial. The outlets sought similar permission for the jury selection, even though it is being done in private without audio access.

    “I have gone as far as I can go with response to access,” Davis told lawyers and media representatives in the courtroom, noting that even providing an audio feed of the trial is unprecedented.

    “You’re getting the most access of any media in a Superior Court case in Delaware,” he said.

    Lawyers for Fox filed a response opposing the media access request, saying it risks invading privacy interests, distracting jurors and trial participants, and compromising the integrity of the trial proceedings.

    “There is no guarantee that others will not exploit or misuse the recordings once they are posted online,” Fox;s lawyers wrote.

    Opening statements are scheduled for Monday in a trial expected to last six weeks.

    Dominion alleges that Fox damaged the company by repeatedly airing false allegations that its machines and the software they used rigged the 2020 presidential election to prevent Donald Trump’s reelection. Records produced as part of the suit show many Fox executives and on-air hosts didn’t believe the claims but broadcast them anyway.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Fox attorneys in libel case reveal dual roles for Murdoch

    Fox attorneys in libel case reveal dual roles for Murdoch

    [ad_1]

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Attorneys defending Fox in a defamation case related to false claims about the 2020 election withheld critical information about the role company founder Rupert Murdoch played at Fox News, a revelation that angered the judge when it came up at a Tuesday hearing.

    It was not clear whether the development would affect a trial scheduled to begin Thursday with jury selection. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox for $1.6 billion, saying it damaged its reputation by repeatedly airing false claims that the company helped orchestrate a fraud that cost former President Donald Trump re-election.

    The role of Fox executives is at the heart of the case. The company’s attorneys have sought to insulate members of the Murdoch family and to keep them from testifying live before a jury, arguing that their roles at the parent company, Fox Corp., put them at a distance from the Fox News shows that aired the bogus claims.

    Fox Corp. had asserted since Dominion filed its lawsuit in 2021 that Rupert Murdoch had no official role at Fox News. In its filings, it had listed Fox News officers as Suzanne Scott, Jay Wallace and Joe Dorrego. But on Easter Sunday, Fox disclosed to Dominion’s attorneys that Murdoch also is “executive chair” at Fox News. The disclosure came after Superior Court Judge Eric Davis wondered aloud during a status conference last week who Fox News’ officers were.

    Davis was clearly disturbed by the disclosure, coming on the eve of the trial.

    “My problem is that it has been represented to me more than once that he is not an officer,” the judge said.

    Davis suggested that had he known of Murdoch’s dual role at Fox Corp. and Fox News, he might have reached different conclusions in a summary judgment ruling he issued last month. In that ruling, the judge said there was no dispute that the statements aired by Fox were false, but that a jury would have to decide whether Fox News acted with actual malice and whether Fox Corp. directly participated in airing the statements.

    To Fox attorney Matthew Carter, Davis said: “You have a credibility problem.”

    In response, Carter said he believed Murdoch’s title at Fox News was only “honorific.”

    “I’m not mad at you,” the judge later told Carter. “I’m mad at the situation I’m in.”

    In a statement issued after Tuesday’s pretrial hearing, Fox said, “Rupert Murdoch has been listed as executive chairman of Fox News in our SEC filings since 2019 and this filing was referenced by Dominion’s own attorney during his deposition.”

    It’s unclear whether the judge will take any action in response to the late disclosure. But an attorney for Dominion said he wanted Fox to further explain Murdoch’s role with the network, indicating the issue could come up when the pretrial hearing continues Wednesday.

    Dominion attorney Justin Nelson told the judge the disclosure has “a big impact” on the case. He said Fox’s failure to disclose Murdoch’s status at Fox News has deprived Dominion of “a whole bunch” of information from Murdoch as a custodian of Fox News records that it was entitled to have.

    “It is something that really has impacted how we have litigated this case,” he said.

    Tuesday’s development was the latest to turn an uncomfortable spotlight on the network.

    Information obtained by Dominion as part of its lawsuit has shown that some network hosts harbored off-camera doubts about election fraud claims but nevertheless allowed program guests to repeatedly make them in the aftermath of the 2020 election. The case also has drawn scrutiny of various emails and text messages shared among Rupert Murdoch, his son Lachlan Murdoch and Scott, the Fox News CEO, about election coverage and the allegations by Trump and his allies that he was cheated.

    They revealed a chorus of voices, from Rupert Murdoch and top network hosts to producers and publicists, who internally cast the election-stealing conspiracy claims as crazy even as the network repeatedly gave them a platform. Internal communications also showed that at the time, major players at Fox were deeply worried about retaining pro-Trump viewers.

    In a ruling earlier Tuesday, the judge denied a motion by Fox seeking to bar any reference at trial to matters involving the Murdoch family, which owns Fox Corp. The judge also said he would allow jurors to hear some testimony about threats directed at the voting machine company, but only to a point.

    The judge granted a motion by Fox to prohibit any reference to specific threats or harassment directed at Dominion, saying he did not want the jury to be prejudiced against Fox because of threats made by people with no connection to the network. But he said he would allow Dominion to talk generally about threats it had received to show how it has been damaged by the Fox broadcasts.

    “It has decimated Dominion’s ability to attract and retain employees, because the company is under siege,” said Megan Meier, an attorney for the voting machine company.

    The judge already decided last week there would be no testimony about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Fox attorneys in libel case reveal dual roles for Murdoch

    Fox attorneys in libel case reveal dual roles for Murdoch

    [ad_1]

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Attorneys defending Fox in a defamation case related to false claims about the 2020 election withheld critical information about the role company founder Rupert Murdoch played at Fox News, a revelation that angered the judge when it came up at a Tuesday hearing.

    It was not clear whether the development would affect a trial scheduled to begin Thursday with jury selection. Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox for $1.6 billion, saying it damaged its reputation by repeatedly airing false claims that the company helped orchestrate a fraud that cost former President Donald Trump re-election.

    The role of Fox executives is at the heart of the case. The company’s attorneys have sought to insulate members of the Murdoch family and to keep them from testifying live before a jury, arguing that their roles at the parent company, Fox Corp., put them at a distance from the Fox News shows that aired the bogus claims.

    Fox Corp. had asserted since Dominion filed its lawsuit in 2021 that Rupert Murdoch had no official role at Fox News. In its filings, it had listed Fox News officers as Suzanne Scott, Jay Wallace and Joe Dorrego. But on Easter Sunday, Fox disclosed to Dominion’s attorneys that Murdoch also is “executive chair” at Fox News. The disclosure came after Superior Court Judge Eric Davis wondered aloud during a status conference last week who Fox News’ officers were.

    Davis was clearly disturbed by the disclosure, coming on the eve of the trial.

    “My problem is that it has been represented to me more than once that he is not an officer,” the judge said.

    Davis suggested that had he known of Murdoch’s dual role at Fox Corp. and Fox News, he might have reached different conclusions in a summary judgment ruling he issued last month. In that ruling, the judge said there was no dispute that the statements aired by Fox were false, but that a jury would have to decide whether Fox News acted with actual malice and whether Fox Corp. directly participated in airing the statements.

    To Fox attorney Matthew Carter, Davis said: “You have a credibility problem.”

    In response, Carter said he believed Murdoch’s title at Fox News was only “honorific.”

    “I’m not mad at you,” the judge later told Carter. “I’m mad at the situation I’m in.”

    It’s unclear whether the judge will take any action in response to the late disclosure. But an attorney for Dominion said he wanted Fox to further explain Murdoch’s role with the network, indicating the issue could come up when the pretrial hearing continues Wednesday.

    Dominion attorney Justin Nelson told the judge the disclosure has “a big impact” on the case. He said Fox’s failure to disclose Murdoch’s status at Fox News has deprived Dominion of “a whole bunch” of information from Murdoch as a custodian of Fox News records that it was entitled to have.

    “It is something that really has impacted how we have litigated this case,” he said.

    Tuesday’s development was the latest to turn an uncomfortable spotlight on the network.

    Information obtained by Dominion as part of its lawsuit has shown that some network hosts harbored off-camera doubts about election fraud claims but nevertheless allowed program guests to repeatedly make them in the aftermath of the 2020 election. The case also has drawn scrutiny of various emails and text messages shared among Rupert Murdoch, his son Lachlan Murdoch and Scott, the Fox News CEO, about election coverage and the allegations by Trump and his allies that he was cheated.

    They revealed a chorus of voices, from Rupert Murdoch and top network hosts to producers and publicists, who internally cast the election-stealing conspiracy claims as crazy even as the network repeatedly gave them a platform. Internal communications also showed that at the time, major players at Fox were deeply worried about retaining pro-Trump viewers.

    In a ruling earlier Tuesday, the judge denied a motion by Fox seeking to bar any reference at trial to matters involving the Murdoch family, which owns Fox Corp. The judge also said he would allow jurors to hear some testimony about threats directed at the voting machine company, but only to a point.

    The judge granted a motion by Fox to prohibit any reference to specific threats or harassment directed at Dominion, saying he did not want the jury to be prejudiced against Fox because of threats made by people with no connection to the network. But he said he would allow Dominion to talk generally about threats it had received to show how it has been damaged by the Fox broadcasts.

    “It has decimated Dominion’s ability to attract and retain employees, because the company is under siege,” said Megan Meier, an attorney for the voting machine company.

    The judge already decided last week there would be no testimony about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    [ad_2]

    Source link