NEW YORK, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Sarah Palin on Wednesday

won her bid for a new trial against the New York Times ( NYT )

over an editorial that the former Alaska governor said was

defamatory.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Palin can try

again to prove that the Times should be liable for a 2017

editorial that incorrectly linked her to a mass shooting six

years earlier that killed six people and seriously wounded

Democratic U.S. congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Lawyers for Palin argued that U.S. District Judge Jed

Rakoff, who oversaw the February 2022 trial, wrongly excluded

evidence of the Times' actual malice and wrongly instructed

jurors to disregard some of that evidence.

Media critics, and Palin herself, have viewed the case as a

possible vehicle to overturn New York Times ( NYT ) v. Sullivan, the

landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision that set a high bar

for public figures to prove defamation.

To win, public figures must show that media demonstrated

"actual malice," meaning they knowingly published false

information or had reckless disregard for the truth.

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have

urged a reconsideration of the Sullivan decision, with Gorsuch

citing changes in the media landscape, including the growth of

cable TV news and online media and spread of disinformation.

The Times' editorial, "America's Lethal Politics," addressed

gun control and lamented the rise of incendiary political

rhetoric.

It was published on June 14, 2017, after a gunman opened

fire at a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria,

Virginia, injuring Republican U.S. congressman Steve Scalise and

others.

The editorial noted that before the 2011 shooting in Tucson,

Arizona where Giffords was wounded, Palin's political action

committee published a map with crosshairs over Giffords'

election district.

Palin objected to the editorial, saying "the link to

political incitement was clear" despite there being no evidence

that the map motivated Jared Lee Loughner, the Arizona gunman.

James Bennet, then the newspaper's editorial page editor,

had added the disputed language. The Times corrected the

editorial the next morning after readers and a columnist

complained. Bennet was a defendant in Palin's case.

Palin, 60, the Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate

in 2008 and Alaska governor from 2006 to 2009, has cast the case

in biblical terms, testifying that she considered herself an

underdog to the Times' Goliath.

Lawyers for the Times argued that the newspaper and Bennet

never intended to link Palin to the Arizona shooting.

Rakoff added a wrinkle to the case by ruling during jury

deliberations that he would dismiss Palin's case because she did

not offer clear and convincing evidence of the Times' malice.

Some jurors learned what Rakoff did through news alerts on

their cellphones. They said it had no effect on their

deliberations, which lasted another few hours.

The case is Palin v. New York Times ( NYT ) et al, 2nd U.S. Circuit

Court of Appeals, No. 22-558.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York)