Judge Roy Moore Wins Defamation Lawsuit

 Gentle readers may remember Judge Roy Moore from Alabama as the Judge who installed a granite monument on court grounds that included a depiction of the Ten Commandments.  Of course, the Left went wild with outrage.  This was while Muslims were the protected class du jour.

Moore, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, had been a controversial figure in Alabama politics, stemming at least from when he became known as the “Ten Commandments Judge” after installing a granite monument in the Alabama courts building that included a depiction of the Ten Commandments. In 2017, he was in a special election contest against Democrat Doug Jones to fill the Alabama Senate seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions.

Today, at The Federalist John Lucas tells us that Roy Moore Defamation Victory Sends a Message About the 'Actual Malice' Standard. Lucas describes a coordinated attack involving the Senate Majority PAC, a subsidiary PAC, the Highway 31 PAC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post to spread a sexual lie about Moore. As I recall, it was shocking. Moore just secured an $8.2 million settlement against the Senate Majority PAC:

After a five-day trial, the eight-person jury retired to deliberate. Typically, after a trial of that length, with 17 witnesses and no fewer than 254 exhibits, the jury will deliberate for a number of hours, perhaps into the following days. This jury, however, was back in 90 minutes with an $8.2 million verdict for Moore on two separate counts, defamation and “invasion of privacy, false light.” That is an extraordinarily quick result for a trial of this type and a multimillion-dollar verdict.

In response to nine specific written questions from the court, the jury found that Moore had proved by “clear and convincing evidence” that Senate Majority PAC intentionally published a false and defamatory statement and “false information” about Moore. The jury also found that SMP published the untrue statement “with actual malice (that is, SMP knew that a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard as to whether a statement was false)”.

The verdict should be a wake-up call for the media and others who publish attack ads...

It is one thing to publish false information because you believe it to be true. It is quite another to deliberately lie. the latter is called "bearing false witness," and of course can, and often does ruin a person's reputation, which is often the point. It may not be illegal, but it is definitely immoral.  It should be punished, and in this case it has. But we need to see more of it. People should be able to evaluate their candidates based on reality, not based on lies told by the candidate's opponent.