Word: sofaer
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...unusual move, Sofaer asked the jury to report publicly their answers at each stage. After 14 hours of deliberations, the jury announced on Wednesday that it had found for Sharon on the first question. The paragraph, said the jury, implied that Sharon "consciously intended" to permit the Phalangists to take revenge by deliberately killing noncombatants in the camps. It took the jury an additional 20 hours of deliberation, which continued through Friday afternoon, to find that the disputed paragraph was in fact false. At week's end the jurors were still debating the question of malice...
...Under Sofaer's agreement with Israel allowing lawyers for both sides to examine secret information gathered by the Kahan commission, TIME had sought access to testimony collected by the commission's investigators that, it contended, could support its case. Sofaer last week received permission from the Israeli government to release a letter to the court from Haim Zadok, the attorney who acted on TIME's behalf. According to Zadok, a former Israeli Minister of Justice, he was not allowed to see information gathered by the investigators, who had the power to summon witnesses and require them to testify. Zadok also...
Devoting 20 of his charge's 64 pages to a definition of "actual malice," Sofaer offered three separate ways in which the jurors could find against TIME. If they believed Halevy or another TIME employee had "fabricated" the story, including the claim of what was in Appendix B, then that would constitute actual malice. The jurors also could decide against TIME if they believed Sharon's charge that journalists in New York had "exaggerated or distorted" the information Halevy received to the point that they were aware that it was "probably untrue." Finally, the jurors could find actual malice...
Some legal experts not connected with the case thought that Judge Sofaer's complex definition of malice represented a departure from precedent. "It is contrary to established law to equate exaggeration with substantial factual falsity," observed Richard Winfield, a publishing specialist in the Manhattan firm of Rogers & Wells. Said Henry Kaufman, general counsel for the Libel Defense Resource Center, a New York-based media group: "It's a Rube Goldberg kind of charge. I'm concerned, in the context of this case, that jurors will turn the concept of material exaggeration or distortion around to secondguess editorial judgment...
...then hear testimony on Sharon's reputation to determine any assessment of damages. In most libel cases, the lawyers for both sides present evidence on the plaintiff's reputation before the jury begins its overall deliberations. But after Sharon had already presented character witnesses on his own behalf, Judge Sofaer decided to split the trial; he ruled that introduction of evidence detrimental to Sharon's reputation could unfairly influence the jury on the first three issues. For Sharon to win the case, he will have to show that his reputation was in fact damaged...