| UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux | |
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| abb | Nov 1 2016, 03:54 AM Post #1486 |
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http://www.nbc29.com/story/33520095/rolling-stone-trial-day-12 Rolling Stone Trial: Defense Rests Its Case Posted: Oct 31, 2016 8:08 AM CST Updated: Oct 31, 2016 5:19 PM CST RELATED DOCUMENT: Judge Conrad's Memorandum Opinion http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/wvir/documents/conrad-opinion-motion-defamation-oct31.pdf CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Closing arguments are set to get underway Tuesday in the Rolling Stone defamation trial. Attorneys for the magazine rested their case, and witness testimony ended Monday afternoon in the multimillion dollar defamation trial. Lawyers arrived at a federal courtroom in Charlottesville at 8 a.m. Monday, October 31, to hash out some final details before the defense began presenting its case to the jury at around 9:30 a.m. Rolling Stone published "A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Ruin Erdely in its November 2014 issue. The article centered on "Jackie", then a University of Virginia student, who described being gang raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in September of 2012. An investigation by city police in 2015 found no evidence to back up the claims made in the article. The magazine eventually retracted the article and apologized. Nicole Eramo, then the associate dean of students at UVA, claims Erdely’s article unfairly portrayed her as indifferent to Jackie's plight and only interested in protecting the university's reputation. She filed a lawsuit against Rolling Stone, publisher Wenner Media, and Erdely. Eramo is seeking around $7.5 million in damages. The defense called UVA Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Susan Davis to the stand Monday morning. Davis helped draft the university’s 2011 Sexual Misconduct policies. Davis testified UVA sent documents specific to its knowledge of Jackie and Stacy's stories in November 2014 to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). Last week, an editor with Rolling Stone testified that there were discussions over having Erdely’s article focus on Stacy, instead of Jackie. "We provided all the information we had at the time," Davis told the court. According to Davis, representatives with the Office of Civil Rights also reviewed cases from fall 2012 to spring 2014 as well. Jurors heard about an OCR review at UVA, and its findings indicated that the university did not promptly investigate a 2013 reported sexual assault and 2014 case. Jurors then heard more from a September 2014 recording of Erdely, Jackie, her then-boyfriend Conner McGovern, and friend Alexandria “Alex” Pinkleton at College Inn. The defense played portions of that conversation, including parts where Jackie talks about her father. Jackie told Erdely in that conversation that her father blamed her for the alleged gang rape at Phi Kappa Psi’s fraternity house. She said he was argumentative, often telling Jackie she was wrong and dumb as a child. At another point in the conversation, Jackie seems to express concern for Eramo, at one point saying, "I'm worried about like her job security." Jackie also said she had a plan to kill herself on December 12 of that year. She said she bought a rope to hang herself, typed up a will and drafted a suicide note, but stopped when friends said they would have to "put down" her cat Stella. "There's always going to be another Friday night, and another fraternity party, and another girl," said Jackie during that conversation with Erdely. Attorneys representing Rolling Stone were able to present their defense fairly quickly, and rested around 1:35 p.m. Monday. The magazine's legal team had the opportunity to put forth a lot of its evidence already during cross-examination over the past two weeks. Erdely was called back to the witness stand for a rebuttal by plaintiff's attorney Libby Locke. Locke's questioning mainly focused on Erdely's notes and a recording that apparently shows confusion from Jackie over which fraternity was involved in her assault: There were several instances of the fraternity being called "Pi Phi" instead of "Phi Psi". The author again told jurors that she never doubted Jackie's story, and believed it to be true for a number of documented reasons. Sean Woods, who worked as an editor for Erdely’s article, took the stand again Monday afternoon. Jurors were then excused for the day while attorneys and Judge Glen Conrad went over jury instructions. The court will hear closing arguments Tuesday morning. The jury will then get its instruction before going behind closed doors and deliberating. |
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| abb | Nov 1 2016, 04:06 AM Post #1487 |
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http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2016/10/defense-rests-its-case-in-rolling-stone-trial-closing-arguments-to-follow Defense rests its case in Rolling Stone trial, closing arguments to follow Susan Davis called as a witness by Anna Higgins and Maggie Servais | Oct 31 2016 | 5 hours ago nseramoxli Xiaoqi Li | Cavalier Daily Former Associate Dean Nicole Eramo. The third week of former Associate Dean Nicole Eramo $7.5 million lawsuit began Monday with the defense’s opportunity to submit evidence. The defense called Susan Davis, acting University vice president and chief student affairs officer, to the stand as a witness. Eramo is suing Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Rolling Stone Magazine and Wenner Media, Inc. for her portrayal in the now-retracted article “A Rape on Campus.” Davis — who has stepped in for Vice President and Chief Student Affairs Officer Pat Lampkin while she is on sabbatical — has worked for the University since 1999 and has been with the Office of Student Affairs since 2004. Rolling Stone’s attorneys focused on Davis’ role as the University’s point person for the Office for Civil Rights beginning in the fall of 2011. The OCR began investigating the University’s history of and policies concerning sexual assault on June 30, 2011. The OCR visited Grounds three times in 2012, but not at all in 2013 or 2014, Eramo’s attorney Andy Phillips said. “U.Va. heard nothing from OCR regarding policies for some 17 months until the day after the article was published,” Phillips said. Davis verified she had not heard from the OCR for 17 months until she received an email early in the morning on Nov. 20, 2014 — the day after “A Rape on Campus” was published. “A Rape on Campus” caused the formerly dormant review of the University’s policies on sexual assault to be jump-started again, Phillips said. In the email, the OCR requested the University provide further information regarding several reports of alleged sexual violence, including all documentation related to the cases of both Jackie and “Stacy,” an interviewee of the Rolling Stone article. Following Davis’s testimony, the defense presented the jury with an audio recording of a Sept. 12, 2014, dinner between “A Rape on Campus” author Sabrina Erdely and the article’s central source Jackie, as well as Jackie’s boyfriend Connor and her then-friend Alex Pinkleton, who is also quoted in the article. In the audio, Jackie and Pinkleton spoke about how their experiences with sexual violence affected them and how they moved forward with dealing with sexual assault. Eramo’s attorney Libby Locke called Erdely to the stand to review the transcript of the dinner she had with Jackie and to point out warning signs of Jackie’s unreliability as a source. One of Locke’s major points was Jackie’s consistent referral to Phi Kappa Psi as “Pi Phi,” the nickname of sorority Pi Beta Phi. “It seems more likely than anything else she’s mixing up the syllables,” Erdely said on the stand. “It’s not that she doesn’t have it straight — it’s all Greek to her.” Locke also asked Erdely if Jackie’s audible joviality when discussing her planned suicide was a source of concern for her when deciding to use Jackie as her source. Erdely said she believed Jackie was simply putting on a brave face and dealing with her trauma. Scott Sexton, an attorney representing Rolling Stone, also asked Erdely how she perceived the attitudes Jackie and Pinkleton showed towards sexual assault and trauma. “They didn’t like to sit around and be sad sacks and feel sorry for themselves,” Erdely said of Jackie and Pinkleton. Following the lunch break, the judge momentarily dismissed the jury to discuss motions made by both the plaintiffs and the defendants. Eramo’s counsel had moved for the Dec. 5, 2014, republication of the article with an editor’s note to be considered as actual malice, while the defendants moved to deny the motion. U.S. District Court Judge Glen E. Conrad said the editor’s note issued with the republication discredited Jackie’s story, but not the statements in the article claiming Eramo’s lack of performance as an associate dean of students. “I do agree the editor’s note repudiates Jackie’s statements, but that’s not the end of the inquiry,” he said. At the end of the day, Conrad initiated informal meetings with counsel members in the court chambers to discuss motions and to finalize jury instructions. Attorneys from both sides had issued objections to their motions Conrad had dismissed, but Conrad maintained his original ruling. One of the rulings Conrad upheld was in favor of the defendants’ motion for judgment in the matter of law, meaning “no reasonable juror could find that ‘A Rape on Campus,' read as a whole … reasonably implies that Eramo was a false friend to Jackie who pretended to be on Jackie's side while seeking to suppress sexual assault reporting,” according to Conrad’s memorandum opinion. “The court believes this is a purposeful avoidance case,” Conrad said. Court will reconvene with closing arguments Tuesday morning. Published October 31, 2016 in News |
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| abb | Nov 1 2016, 04:10 AM Post #1488 |
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https://www.buzzfeed.com/tylerkingkade/when-rolling-stone-retracted-uva-story?utm_term=.nnO854jq9V#.vhnMWmeV41 Why It Matters When Rolling Stone Retracted Its Explosive Rape Story Both sides continue to dispute when the magazine retracted its story about sexual assault at the University of Virginia. “The longer Rolling Stone waited to retract after learning the facts, the more evidence of bad faith.” posted on Oct. 31, 2016, at 5:18 p.m. Tyler Kingkade BuzzFeed News Reporter Rolling Stone magazine retracted its story about rape at the University of Virginia. But whether the retraction happened in December 2014 or several months later, and whether the retraction applied to the whole article or just part of it, is being debated in federal court. Jann Wenner, the founder and publisher of Rolling Stone, raised eyebrows Friday when video of his deposition was played in former UVA dean Nicole Eramo’s libel suit. Eramo is suing for $7.5 million in damages, arguing that the magazine and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the writer of “A Rape on Campus,” defamed her in the article’s portrayal of her response to an alleged sexual assault of a student named Jackie. The trial moves into closing arguments on Tuesday. In Wenner’s deposition, he said he disagreed with then–managing editor Will Dana’s April 2015 editor’s note, which stated that the magazine was “officially retracting” the entire article. Wenner called that “inaccurate,” adding, “We do not retract the whole story.” “To withdraw a retraction would seem to be an assertion that Rolling Stone is standing by the story,” said Michael C. Dorf, a Chicago-based attorney who teaches First Amendment issues. “The only possible reason I could think for doing this is that Rolling Stone is going to try to use truth, the ultimate libel defense, as its trial strategy.” Throughout the trial, both sides have disputed the date when the retraction was issued, and whether Rolling Stone’s apologizing — something legal observers say is done to mitigate damages and attract sympathy from the jury — was sincere. But, legal experts told BuzzFeed News, Wenner putting forth a new take on the retraction could be a risky move. “Denying that it was all retracted is a pretty high-stakes play by Wenner,” said Stuart Karle, who teaches media law at Columbia University. “It seems to me to be a pitch to the jury that, even today, no one is too sure what happened, and while [Rolling Stone] can’t prove what did happen, it did well enough under the circumstances to get to the truth and nothing it found shows that it lied or ignored accuracy.” “A Rape on Campus” was published to much acclaim in November 2014, but reporting from other media outlets raised doubts about Jackie’s story and caused the article to unravel. The April 2015 retraction came following a report from the Columbia Journalism Review detailing Rolling Stone’s reporting and editing failures. During opening statements on Oct. 18, and throughout the first week of testimony, lawyers for Rolling Stone argued that the article was effectively retracted on Dec. 5, 2014, when an editor’s note was appended to the top disavowing the reporting on Jackie’s claims. Defense attorneys said that the magazine kept the story online so that readers would see this disclaimer. When she took the stand, reporter Erdely concurred that adding the editor’s note in December constituted a retraction. However, Eramo’s lawyers disagreed. They insisted that the note amounted to republishing the story, attracting more readers to its allegedly defamatory statements about her. They claimed the retraction didn’t happen until April 2015, four months after the article’s credibility was shot. In a case like this one, seemingly small disagreements about dates could have a big impact. Under Virginia law, noted attorney Dorf, a prompt retraction can show that the defendant acted in good faith — in other words, that the magazine acted responsibly once it knew the story was inaccurate — and reduce the amount of damages owed. “The longer Rolling Stone waited to retract after learning the facts, the more evidence of bad faith,” Dorf said. Eramo’s lawyers have to convince the jury that Rolling Stone acted with “actual malice,” which means the staff had serious doubts about the validity of the story that they ignored when the article was published. The Supreme Court has held that post-publication actions, like retractions or apologies, do not necessarily reveal whether a media outlet had actual malice at the moment of publication. In addition to disputing that the article was fully retracted, Wenner apologized to Eramo in his deposition video Friday. “I’m very, very sorry. It was never meant to ever happen this way to you,” Wenner said. “And believe me, I’ve suffered as much as you have. But please, my sympathies.” Legal experts told BuzzFeed News that emphasizing apologies is generally a play for jury sympathy and an attempt to reduce damages, should the defendant lose. Eramo said on the stand that she didn’t take Wenner’s apology as sincere because he also said Rolling Stone stood by the portions of the article that did not deal with Jackie’s case. When he testified on Oct. 27, Rolling Stone editor Sean Woods also apologized to Eramo, stating, “I’m sorry if this hurt you in any way.” Eramo’s lawyer pressed, “Do you think Ms. Eramo was hurt by this story?” Woods responded, “I do,” but added the caveat, “I think she is a public figure and subject to criticism.” |
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| abb | Nov 2 2016, 04:33 AM Post #1489 |
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http://www.newsplex.com/content/news/Understanding-actual-malice-in-Rolling-Stone-Lawsuit-399567521.html Understanding "actual malice" in Rolling Stone Lawsuit By Tomas Harmon, Courteney Stuart | Posted: Tue 7:36 PM, Nov 01, 2016 CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (NEWSPLEX) -- A key part of the Rolling Stone lawsuit trial depends on whether the jury believes that Rolling Stone published the Article "A Rape on Campus" with actual malice. The "actual malice" standard is what will help the jury determine whether Rolling Stone defamed Former University of Virginia Dean Nicole Eramo. But it is a steep standard to prove. "Dean Eramo has to show that Rolling Stone published the things that they said about her, with a reckless disregard for the truth," said Scott Goodman, Legal Analyst for CBS19 NEWS. As Eramo's Attorney Libby Locke puts it, "Rolling Stone knew what they were writing about Nicole Eramo was false." If Locke is right, than that is actual malice. Actual malice is difficult to prove though, especially in the Rolling Stone trial, because Eramo was ruled a public figure by a judge. "That was established before the trial even started that she was a public person," said Goodman. "So she has to meet a higher standard to prove the damages she is seeking." The standard includes: One, Author Sabrina Erdely had a preconceived notion of the story she was going to write; two, Erdely had reason to doubt Jackie as a source; and three, Rolling Stone failed to follow journalistic fact-checking procedures. "If Ms. Eramo's lawyers can prove all of those things or two of the three, perhaps that could constitute enough for the jury to find that this story was published with an actual disregard for the truth," Goodman said. Finding for Eramo would only be part one of the trial. The jury would then have to determine if the damages to Eramo's reputation are worth the almost $8 million she is asking for. Eramo's attorneys think they have a strong case that proves she suffered damages to her reputation. However, Eramo is now working as the Executive Director of Assessment and Planning at UVA. Her new job included more money. "With regard to the damages, the case that she has may not be as strong because she is making more money than she mad even before the story was published," noted Goodman. Even if a jury finds for Eramo, the decision can still be appealed. |
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| abb | Nov 2 2016, 04:34 AM Post #1490 |
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http://nypost.com/2016/11/01/ex-uva-deans-lawyer-blasts-rolling-stone-editors-reckless-rape-story/ Ex-UVA dean’s lawyer blasts Rolling Stone editor’s ‘reckless’ rape story By Jackson Landers - 11/1/16 An attorney for the former University of Virginia dean suing Rolling Stone for defamation alleged during closing arguments that the magazine’s campus rape story was reported with a “reckless disregard for the truth.” Attorney Tom Clare charged that Rolling Stone “needed a villain” for the Nov. 2014 feature piece — and the story’s author, Sabrina Erdely, decided former associate dean of students Nicole Eramo fit the bill. “Every one of her stories has a victim, a villain and a vindicator … Ms. Erdely and Rolling Stone were intent on imposing that on this story,” Clare said. “It had all of the elements of a perfect story, but when something sounds too perfect to be true, it probably is.” Eramo, who is seeking $7.5 million, claims the since-discredited story portrayed her as turning a blind eye to gang rape claims made by a former student identified as “Jackie.” Clare argued that the defamation case is not about rape, but about journalistic failure. The lawyer said Erdely left out important details in her piece on purpose, like the fact that Eramo took Jackie to the police on two separate occasions. ‘Every one of her stories has a victim, a villain and a vindicator…’ - Tom Clare, attorney for former UVA dean “They made a decision to remove [from the article] every reference to the police and that’s actual malice,” he said. Clare also blasted Erdely for ignoring red flags, such as Jackie’s refusal to put her in touch with sources who could corroborate her alleged gang rape account. “Jackie’s refusal to put Ms. Erdely in touch with people who could confirm or deny her story was a giant, waving red flag,” he insisted. “Once they decided what the article was going to be, it didn’t matter what the facts were,” Clare added. Rolling Stone’s attorney John Cox countered that Erdely put a “tremendous amount of work” into the article, but was ultimately fooled by Jackie. “Sabrina was acting in good faith when she wrote the article with the information she had,” he insisted. “Our world would shut down if we walked out that court room door and expected everyone to lie to us.” Cox also said that because Eramo is a public figure, Erdely had every right to criticize her. “She is a highly compensated public servant… we are entitled as citizens to criticize a public figure,” he explained. Cox argued that Eramo’s attorneys are intent on proving that the story was republished in Dec. 2014 — when the magazine added an editor’s note to the piece after Jackie’s rape account had been called into question — because they, “have no case for actual malice” before then. One of the questions jurors will be asked is whether they believe that Rolling Stone “affirmatively reiterated the content of any false and defamatory statements.” |
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| abb | Nov 2 2016, 04:35 AM Post #1491 |
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http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/attorney-rolling-stone-author-pushed-preconceived-narrative/article_bd48103b-4cfc-594b-a6f1-4b500383dbaa.html Attorneys make final pitch to jurors in Rolling Stone trial By Alanna Durkin Richer Associated Press | Posted: Tuesday, November 1, 2016 3:08 pm CHARLOTTESVILLE — Making their final pitches to jurors, attorneys in the defamation trial against Rolling Stone magazine sparred in court Tuesday over whether the writer of a botched article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia was the victim of an elaborate ruse or an agenda-driven reporter with little regard for the facts. After hearing more than two weeks’ worth of evidence, jurors are expected to begin deliberating Wednesday to decide whether Rolling Stone and author Sabrina Rubin Erdely defamed university administrator Nicole Eramo, who is seeking $7.5 million from the magazine over what she says was her portrayal as the “chief villain” in the 2014 story about the alleged sexual assault of the woman identified only as “Jackie.” An attorney for Eramo argued that Erdely set out from the beginning to tell a story of “institutional indifference,” brushed off statements from her sources that didn’t fit that preconceived narrative and pushed her own views about the administration onto the women she was interviewing. Eramo claims she was unfairly portrayed in the article as trying to sweep Jackie’s sexual assault under the rug to protect the university. “Once they decided what the article was going to be about, it didn’t matter what the facts were,” attorney Tom Clare said. The story about Jackie’s rape set off a firestorm at the University of Virginia and in schools nationwide and prompted police to launch an investigation into the alleged assault. The story crumbled after other news outlets began asking questions and police found no evidence to back up Jackie’s claims. The article was officially retracted in April 2015. There are only three statements in the article about Eramo in question, including one in which she is quoted — through Jackie — as saying that the university doesn’t publish all of its statistics about sexual assault because “nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school.” Eramo also claims that Erdely defamed her in statements she made on a radio program and podcast after the article was published. The judge has dismissed Eramo’s claim that the story, when taken as a whole, implied that Eramo was a “false friend” to Jackie — a claim that Rolling Stone called a “critical element” of her case. Eramo must prove that Rolling Stone statements about her made her appear “odious, infamous or ridiculous” and that the magazine acted with “actual malice,” meaning it knew that what it was writing about her was false or harbored serious doubts as to whether it might be true. Scott Sexton, an attorney for Rolling Stone, said that Erdely and Rolling Stone editors have proven repeatedly that they never had any doubts about Jackie’s story before it was published. Sexton urged jurors to put themselves in Erdely’s shoes at the time of her reporting and questioned why it would be unreasonable for the writer to believe Jackie when the university itself had taken the woman’s gang rape claim seriously. “Everyone who encountered this young woman believed her,” Sexton said. “Yet we are the ones, in a sense, being tried for having believed her.” Over the course of the more than two-week trial, the 10 jurors have watched 11 hours of video testimony, heard from a dozen live witnesses and have examined nearly 300 exhibits. Jurors will first decide whether the statements in the article defamed Eramo before they consider monetary damages. Attorneys first said that seven jurors will deliberate and three will serve as alternates, but Libby Locke, an attorney for Eramo, said Tuesday that all 10 jurors are expected to deliberate. |
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| abb | Nov 2 2016, 04:36 AM Post #1492 |
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/01/did-rolling-stone-act-with-actual-malice-over-uva-rape-article.html Did Rolling Stone Act With ‘Actual Malice’ Over UVA Rape Article? Lizzie Crocker11.01.16 6:40 PM ET A defamation case jury must decide whether Rolling Stone knew what it was printing about former UVA dean Nicole Eramo was false, or should have known it was false. During closing arguments in the defamation trial against Rolling Stone over its story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia, the plaintiff’s attorney urged the jury to recognize the magazine’s journalistic recklessness and disregard for the truth while pushing a preconceived narrative about sexual assault. “Once they decided what the article was going to be about, it didn’t matter what the facts were,” said Tom Clare, attorney for UVA administrator and former dean Nicole Eramo, who is seeking $7.5 million in damages from the magazine and arguing that Rolling Stone defamed her as uncaring about the alleged sexual assault of a student named “Jackie.” Sabrina Erdely, author of the 2014 “A Rape on Campus” article, was determined to tell a story of “institutional indifference,” Clare said, and projected her own opinions about victims of campus sexual assault onto the alleged victims she interviewed—including Jackie. Clare argued that the case wasn’t about UVA’s sexual assault policy or Jackie, according to reports from the trial. “It’s a case about journalism,” Clare said, and about how Eramo actually treated Jackie—professionally and with empathy, as a person who was in charge of the university’s sexual assault program at the time—as opposed to Rolling Stone’s portrayal of her as callous and indifferent to Jackie’s case. He said Erdely set out to make Eramo the “villain” in her story, knowing that she was an “easy target” who couldn’t legally discuss Jackie’s case. Eramo’s team has to convince the jury that Rolling Stone acted with “actual malice,” meaning that it either knew what it was printing about Eramo was false or should have known it was false. (Eramo was initially seeking $7.85 million from the magazine but recently withdrew her request for $350,000 in punitive damages. She is now seeking $7.5 million in compensatory damages.) In its own closing arguments, Rolling Stone reportedly countered that Eramo’s case doesn’t meet the “actual malice” standard. Defense attorney Scott Sexton also referenced Judge Glen Conrad’s recent ruling, which dismissed Eramo’s claim that the article’s overall implications defamed her. Having heard evidence from Eramo’s team, Judge Conrad ruled on Monday morning that “no reasonable juror” could find that the story as a whole implied that Eramo acted as a “false friend to Jackie who pretended to be on Jackie’s side while seeking to suppress sexual assault reporting.” Sexton said the judge’s dismissal of defamation by implication “makes 97.3 percent of Eramo’s team’s closing [statements] irrelevant.” He also stressed that Erdely had no grudge against Eramo. “They don’t know each other,” he told the jury, going on to suggest that both women had Jackie’s best interests at heart in their respective roles in this case. “My bet is they’d like each other,” he said. After hearing two weeks of evidence presented by Eramo’s team, including testimony from Eramo, Erdely, her editor Sean Woods, Jackie, and Rolling Stone co-founder and publisher Jann Wenner, the court heard the defense’s case on Monday, after Judge Conrad dismissed what Rolling Stone called a “critical element” of Eramo’s case in a statement on the judge’s ruling. Susan Davis, a UVA administrator who helped draw up the university’s 2011 Sexual Misconduct policies, testified Monday that, in 2014, the university sent documents pertaining to Jackie’s story to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). An OCR review of other cases at UVA from fall 2012 to spring 2014 found the university failed to properly investigate two sexual assault reports during this time period. Thank You! You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason Davis testified that the university also sent the OCR documents about the story of another young woman, known as “Stacy,” whom Rolling Stone had reportedly considered using as the main focus of its article after Jackie stopped responding to Erdely’s emails before publication. Woods, who was Erdely’s editor on the article, testified last week that he “firmly believed Jackie’s story” but admitted that he and Erdely “saw [Jackie] as a victim, and we let our guards down.” He laid some blame at the university’s feet for failing to allow Eramo to speak with Erdely, which he suggested might have changed how she came across in the piece. “I really wish [Eramo] would have talked with us,” Woods said, noting that she was “the public face of the [university’s sexual assault] policy.” Wenner offered controversial testimony in a video deposition last week, throwing former Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana under the bus for his “inaccurate” retraction of the article, which the Columbia University Journalism School later called a “failure of journalism.” While Wenner clarified that the magazine issued a “full retraction for all the Jackie stuff in that article,” he said he stood by the rest of the story “personally, professionally, and on behalf of the magazine.” Erdely had previously testified that she also stood by “everything I wrote… except for anything that came from Jackie.” The defense completed its closing arguments Tuesday. The jury will begin its deliberations Wednesday morning. |
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| abb | Nov 2 2016, 04:39 AM Post #1493 |
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http://www.c-ville.com/day-13-attorneys-make-final-pitches-rolling-stone-trial/#.WBm0NsmVO7Q Attorneys make final pitches in Rolling Stone trial Lisa Provence - 11/1/16 It was closing argument day November 1 in U.S. District Court, the site of former UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo’s defamation trial against Rolling Stone for its now-retracted “A Rape on Campus,” and lawyers for both sides spent more than three hours each trying to sway the jury to find for their clients. Plaintiff’s attorney Tom Clare noted the”tremendous amount of material” thrown at jurors during the trial, which is now in its third week, and he tallied the 12 live witnesses, 11 hours of video and 286 exhibits that have been presented. He returned to the theme from his opening argument: “This is a case about journalism,” not about rape, nor whether Jackie, the troubled young woman whose tale of a gang rape at a fraternity actually happened, nor whether victim choice on reporting sexual assaults on campus is a good thing. The case, he said, is about how people like Nicole Eramo, who was the sexual assault point person at UVA, “became collateral damage in a sensational story.” Clare described the “avoidable” missteps Rolling Stone and reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely made, which were investigated and identified in a lacerating 13,000-word report in the Columbia Journalism Review, as “Journalism 101” at least a half dozen times. “Erdely has a career of writing stories about institutional indifference,” said Clare. He dubbed her MO the “three Vs”– victim, villain and vindicator. In “A Rape on Campus,” Jackie was the victim, Eramo the villain and Rolling Stone and Erdely were the vindicators, exposing UVA’s callous handling of sexual assault, he said. Because a judge ruled Eramo is a public figure, she has to prove Erdely and Rolling Stone acted with actual malice, and according to Clare, Erdely’s failure to corroborate Jackie’s claims, her departure from Journalism 101 standards and a preconceived story line constituted a “reckless disregard for the truth,” which is part of the actual malice definition. Clare also cited “giant waving red flags,” and had a high-production value presentation to show jurors Rolling Stone’s marked-up copy before and after facts or quotes had been edited out, complete with a red pen striking through the deleted material. Among the red flags: Jackie only introduced Erdely to people who had heard the story from Jackie, but refused to identify the alleged perpetrator of the gang rape or the three friends she claimed discouraged her from going to the police after the alleged September 28, 2012, incident, said Clare. Nor did Erdely attempt to find “Armpit” and “Blanket,” two of Jackie’s alleged assailants at Phi Kappa Psi, or physical evidence of the rape, such as Jackie’s bloody, torn dress or her medical records for the syphilis she claimed she contracted, said the attorney. Most damning, according to Clare, was that Rolling Stone had removed from the story the fact that Eramo took Jackie to the police after Jackie was allegedly beaned with a bottle in April 2014. “That’s actual malice,” said Clare. Not surprisingly, defendants’ attorney Scott Sexton disagreed. “There’s a temptation to piggyback on the mistakes” in the article, he said. “We acknowledge those mistakes.” But even if Rolling Stone had not used Jackie’s story of a gang rape, “it would not have prevented them from publishing a story about how UVA responds to rape,” he said. And because Eramo is a public figure, “a highly compensated official at a state institution,” he said, that’s why she has to prove malice. “We are entitled to criticize public figures,” said Sexton. He dismissed Clare’s red flags: “Roughly 97.3 percent of what Mr. Clare said in his opening is irrelevant.” Yesterday, Judge Glen Conrad dismissed Eramo’s claim that the article defamed her by implication, which included the illustration of Eramo that she testified made her “look like the devil.” “Gone,” said Sexton. He disputed the three specific statements in the article that Eramo claims are false: that she discouraged Jackie from sharing her story, that she said, “Nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school,” when Jackie sought rape statistics, and that Eramo had a “nonreaction” when Jackie told her in April 2014 that two other young women had been gang raped at Phi Psi. The latter, said Sexton, “is not even defamatory,” because Erdely had asked Jackie to describe Eramo’s face when she told her about the other alleged incidents. He said actual malice means the defendants would have to have published the story with knowledge of or with reckless disregard of the statements’ falsity. Erdely found Jackie credible, said Sexton, as did the editors and fact checker at Rolling Stone. “This is what serious doubt looks like,” he said, showing a copy of the 1:54am December 5, 2014, “our worst nightmare” email Erdely sent to Rolling Stone deputy managing editor Sean Woods when she no longer believed Jackie credible. And Clare’s contention that Erdely was negligent in failing to investigate Jackie’s bogus claims is not actual malice, explained Sexton. Both attorneys displayed verdict forms the jury will use for each of the defendants after it determines whether the story was actionable and whether the defendant acted with actual malice. Clare marked the two questions with “yes.” Sexton marked his with “no.” The jury will begin deliberations Wednesday morning. After the hearing, Eramo attorney Libby Locke said she thinks the jury deliberation is “going to be very quick,” because the actual malice is “very compelling.” If the jury finds in Eramo’s favor, the next phase of the bifurcated trial is damages, which Locke said will probably take a half day. “I think it’s going to be a heart-wrenching phase of the trial to hear how this has affected Nicole and her family.” |
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| Quasimodo | Nov 2 2016, 09:48 AM Post #1494 |
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Dubious. I'm sure the defense would have tried to insist that the lax players were "public figures" by virtue of having been widely reported on in the media. |
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| abb | Nov 2 2016, 01:03 PM Post #1495 |
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http://www.nbc29.com/story/33593332/rolling-stone-trial-day-14 Rolling Stone Defamation Trial: Jury Deliberating Case Posted: Nov 02, 2016 8:38 AM CST Updated: Nov 02, 2016 10:09 AM CST Jurors are now deliberating in the defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone over a retracted 2014 article. Court began Wednesday morning with the jury receiving instructions from Judge Glen Conrad before going into deliberations around 10:10 a.m. Rolling Stone published "A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Ruin Erdely in its November 2014 issue. The article centered on "Jackie", then a University of Virginia student, who described being gang raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in September of 2012. An investigation by Charlottesville police in 2015 found no evidence to back up the claims made in the article. The magazine eventually retracted the article and apologized. Nicole Eramo, then the associate dean of students at UVA, claims Erdely’s article unfairly portrayed her as indifferent to Jackie's plight and only interested in protecting the university's reputation. She filed a lawsuit against Rolling Stone, publisher Wenner Media, and Erdely. Eramo is seeking around $7.5 million in damages. Jurors will need to determine if each independent defendant - Erdely, Rolling Stone, and Wenner Media - defamed Eramo on three separate statements from the original article. Then, jurors will need to determine if Erdely alone defamed Eramo on a podcast and radio show, as well as through statements to the Washington Post after "A Rape on Campus" came out. The jury also has to determine if the magazine defamed Eramo in a statement issued to media after the article published. Finally, the jury will have to decide if the December 5 editor's note from Rolling Stone constituted a republication of the article. If so, jurors will need to determine if those same three statements from the original article defamed Eramo in republication -- given what rolling stone may have know at that time. Jurors have approximately two weeks' worth of testimony to consider. It is unclear how long deliberations may take |
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| Quasimodo | Nov 2 2016, 01:46 PM Post #1496 |
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Can't help wishing we had been able to be waiting on a jury for the lax cases... |
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| abb | Nov 2 2016, 02:08 PM Post #1497 |
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Didn't take that McQueary jury long to come back, did it? I suspect most of their time was spent calculating the amount of damages. I hope that's what happens here. |
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| abb | Nov 2 2016, 03:51 PM Post #1498 |
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rolling-stone-lawsuit-is-now-with-the-jury/article/2606309 Rolling Stone lawsuit is now with the jury By Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) • 11/2/16 4:20 PM It's up to a jury now to decide whether former U.Va. dean Nicole Eramo deserves millions of dollars from Rolling Stone after the magazine published a now-discredited article alleging the school administrator didn't care about sexual assault accusers. Eramo alleged that Rolling Stone, its publisher and the author of the article, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, knew or should have known that their single source for sexual assault accusation was lying. In the article, a woman named "Jackie" claimed she was gang raped at a U.Va. fraternity as part of an initiation ceremony. Erdely didn't attempt to contact the men who allegedly raped Jackie or her three friends who comforted her on the night of the alleged attack. Jackie's story soon fell apart after it was discovered there was no party at the fraternity she named that night and the man she claimed orchestrated the whole thing didn't even exist. Rolling Stone's attorneys framed the problem as an overzealous reporter who relied on a single source — who turned out not to be credible — but didn't think that what was being reported was false. After watching Hulk Hogan sue Gawker — and win — many people want blood in the Rolling Stone case as well. It's definitely a different case, and more complicated, but the Gawker case may have set precedent in making media outlets pay. There is at least one person (that is not on Team Rolling Stone) who thinks Eramo will ultimately lose. Jazz Shaw of Hot Air noted a paragraph at the bottom of a USA Today article that might make things difficult for the U.Va. administrator. "The judge has dismissed Eramo's claim that the story, when taken as a whole, implied Eramo was a 'false friend' to Jackie — a claim that Rolling Stone called a 'critical element' of her case," USA Today wrote. "Eramo must prove that the magazine's statements about her made her appear 'odious, infamous or ridiculous' and that the magazine acted with 'actual malice.'" Shaw wrote that for Eramo to win after this decision from the judge, "the jury will have to be convinced that Erdely maliciously defamed her and intentionally sought to damage her by knowingly printing false information." "All that's really been proven is that Erdely is a terrible reporter who was easily fooled by someone peddling a story and that her editors were equally incompetent in checking and approving her work for publication," Shaw wrote. "Sad as it may be, you can't imprison people for incompetence nor can you often hold them accountable for damages in a civil suit such as this one." "If I had to place a bet on this, assuming that the defense did an even marginally competent job in laying out the criteria to the jury, Rolling Stone will get off the hook," he added. Eramo no longer works for U.Va. because of what Erdely wrote. Even if Eramo wasn't defamed, Erdely certainly caused her harm by failing to properly do her job. If only there were some kind of reparation for that. |
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| abb | Nov 3 2016, 08:09 AM Post #1499 |
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/02/this-is-what-the-jury-in-the-rolling-stone-defamation-trial-must-decide.html This Is What the Jury in the Rolling Stone Defamation Trial Must Decide The jury must deduce if the magazine failed to ascertain whether the ‘Jackie’ article was ‘weakened by inherent improbability, internal inconsistency, or apparently reliable contradictory information.’ Lizzie Crocker 11.02.16 7:05 PM ET The jury in the defamation trial against Rolling Stone over its 2014 story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia adjourned on Wednesday, having failed to arrive at a verdict after deliberating for more than six hours. On the 14th day of the trial in federal court, Judge Glen Conrad reportedly signed an order to give the jurors free meals while they deliberate the defamation suit brought by UVA administrator and former dean Nicole Eramo, who is seeking $7.5 million in damages from the magazine and arguing that Rolling Stone defamed her as uncaring about the alleged sexual assault of a student named “Jackie.” At issue is whether or not Rolling Stone and Sabrina Erdely, author of the now-discredited “A Rape on Campus” article, acted with “actual malice” when reporting the story. On Wednesdsay morning, Judge Conrad gave instructions to the jury that included a clear definition of “actual malice,” ensuring they knew that, in order to win her case, Eramo must prove Erdely and Rolling Stone defamed her “with knowledge of the [defamatory] statement’s falsity or with reckless disregard for whether or not it is false.” Acting with reckless disregard would mean Erdely and Rolling Stone either knew the statements about Eramo were false or “in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of the publication,” according to the Judge Conrad’s definition. His instructions also stressed that “a failure to investigate does not establish actual malice,” noting that malice is not simply negligence. Judge Conrad clarified that jurors could determine that Rolling Stone acted with actual malice if it failed to investigate when they began to doubt the story, because the article would then be “weakened by inherent improbability, internal inconsistency, or apparently reliable contradictory information.” Given that the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism—which was called upon by Rolling Stone to investigate the article—determined that it was a “failure of journalism,” one might have assumed that Eramo was at a significant advantage in this case. But legal experts say the “actual malice” standard is very difficult to prove. “There seems to be a widely held assumption that because various independent organizations have already determined that Rolling Stone did not adhere to basic journalistic standards in its reporting of a supposed rape at UVA, Dean Eramo is going to win this case easily,” said Virginia-based attorney Lee Berlik, who specializes in defamation law. Berlik noted that two significant rulings in the case present Eramo with serious challenges. If Judge Conrad had not ruled back in September (PDF) that Eramo was a “limited-person public figure,” her case would have been much easier to prove because the “actual malice” standard wouldn’t have applied. While Eramo wasn’t a household name or a celebrity, the court ruled that she was a public figure at UVA with respect to her former position there as a sexual assault advocate. Equally significant was the judge’s ruling earlier this week, which dismissed Eramo’s claim that the article’s overall implications defamed her. On Monday, Judge Conrad ruled that “no reasonable juror” could find that the story as a whole implied Eramo acted as a “false friend to Jackie who pretended to be on Jackie’s side while seeking to suppress sexual assault reporting.” Berlik said that the most recent ruling limits Eramo’s case, since any verdict in favor of Eramo "must be based on something one or more of the defendants actually wrote or said expressly, and not on what those statements may have insinuated." Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily DigestStart and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast. Cheat SheetA speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't). By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy The "actual malice" standard may be difficult to prove, but it was implemented as part of the landmark New York Times vs. Sullivan (1964) case to protect freedom of the press. “The purpose of that standard is to give the press breathing room and prevent them from operating based on a chilling effect,” said First Amendment lawyer Marc Randazza, adding, “We don’t want the press to be timid while doing its job. But there’s a large gap between responsibility and timidity.” If Rolling Stone is found not guilty, “it’s because of that breathing room that our legal system gives the First Amendment,” Randazza said. “Without it, we could end up with a defamation regime like you have in Singapore, for example, where a cherry-picked error could result in [a publication’s] ruin.” If the jury sides with Eramo, it would not only confirm that Rolling Stone committed journalistic malpractice but “that the First Amendment is not impermeable,” Randazza said. Another key component that the jury will have to contend with is whether Rolling Stone’s editor’s note—issued on December 5, 2014—amounted to a “republication” of the article. Eramo’s attorneys have argued that then-managing editor Will Dana’s editor’s note drew more attention to the story and therefore further damaged Eramo’s reputation. If the jury finds that Rolling Stone’s editor’s note—in which they admitted they had lost faith in Jackie’s story—is sufficient proof that they knew what they had published was false and defamatory, the case will not end well for the magazine. The article was not officially retracted until April 2015, after the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism essentially discredited the article. This week in court, Rolling Stone co-founder and publisher Jann Wenner said that the full retraction had been “inaccurate…We do not retract the whole story.” |
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| abb | Nov 3 2016, 08:10 AM Post #1500 |
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http://hotair.com/archives/2016/11/02/dont-look-now-rolling-stone-will-probably-win-jackie-lawsuit/ Don't look now, but Rolling Stone will probably win in the "Jackie" lawsuit - Hot Air posted at 2:31 pm on November 2, 2016 by Jazz Shaw We’ve been covering the story of the pseudonymous “Jackie” and A Rape on Campus for what seems like most of my life at this point. The latest, though likely not the last chapter in this epic saga has been the lawsuit brought by the former University of Virginia administrator against Rolling Stone magazine for defaming her. The trial itself has brought a number of revelations about the work of Sabrina Rubin Erdely and how she so completely failed in her efforts as a journalist in documenting her story. It was later apologized for and then fully retracted. Today the case sits with the jury and one might imagine that Nicole Eramo has a clear path to victory. But after hearing how the judge has handled the proceedings, my money is on Rolling Stone to prevail. (USA Today) Jurors are expected to begin deliberating Wednesday in a defamation trial against Rolling Stone magazine for its tale of a gruesome gang rape at the University of Virginia. Former university administrator Nicole Eramo sued the magazine for $7.5 million, claiming a 2014 story entitled “A Rape on Campus” — that was eventually debunked — painted her as insensitive to the needs of sexual assault victims and more concerned with protecting the school’s reputation. On Tuesday, lawyers for both sides made their closing arguments in the case. Eramo’s attorney Tom Clare said the story’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, ignored facts and neglected to check sources that would have gutted her story line. Clare argued that Erdely set out to tell a story of “institutional indifference” and stuck with a preconceived narrative. “Once they decided what the article was going to be about, it didn’t matter what the facts were,” Clare said. Given how utterly the Rape on Campus story fell apart and the fact that even the police have written the event off as something which never happened, how could Rolling Stone possibly win? We get a hint from one passage of the coverage which didn’t attract much media attention. It has to do with a ruling that the judge made mid-way through the proceedings. The judge has dismissed Eramo’s claim that the story, when taken as a whole, implied Eramo was a “false friend” to Jackie — a claim that Rolling Stone called a “critical element” of her case. Eramo must prove that the magazine’s statements about her made her appear “odious, infamous or ridiculous” and that the magazine acted with “actual malice.” That ruling is likely a deal breaker for Eramo. The entire premise of her claim is that the depiction of her actions during the early days after the accusations surfaced made her out to be essentially “an enemy” of Jackie. Such a story undermines her professional credibility, making it seem as if she was uninterested in the welfare of the students and sacrificed Jackie’s safety in favor of protecting the institution’s reputation. The judge has essentially kicked that claim to the curb. In order to prove her case now, the jury will have to be convinced that Erdely maliciously defamed her and intentionally sought to damage her by knowingly printing false information. From everything we’ve learned so far, that’s not the case here. All that’s really been proven is that Erdely is a terrible reporter who was easily fooled by someone peddling a story and that her editors were equally incompetent in checking and approving her work for publication. Sad as it may be, you can’t imprison people for incompetence nor can you often hold them accountable for damages in a civil suit such as this one. If I had to place a bet on this, assuming that the defense did an even marginally competent job in laying out the criteria to the jury, Rolling Stone will get off the hook. The real cause of the harm to Eramo here is, of course, Jackie. And in a more general sense she damaged Rolling Stone and the entire women’s rights movement with her bogus and fully discredited tale. Perhaps we should be asking why a case couldn’t be brought against her for making such outrageous claims which wound up bruising the fraternity and the university. But that’s not going to happen either. First of all, bringing any sort of suit against someone claiming to be a rape victim – even a completely discredited one – would be so toxic in today’s politically correct climate that it wouldn’t even be considered. For similar reasons I highly doubt you’ll see criminal charges against her for filing a false complaint. (Particularly since the accused rapists wound up being imaginary.) Plus, she’s already set down the groundwork for an insanity defense by talking about how her memory is blacked out from trauma and she’s suffering from PTSD, etc. etc. etc. I may wind up being wrong here and I hope that I am, but I doubt it. Given the very specific nature of what Eramo will have to prove in order to receive a judgement in her favor, I’m guessing she’s going to lose. |
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9:14 AM Jul 11