Illinois Chief Justice's Libel Victory To Make History

The Chicago Tribune reports:

The verdict was unusual, partly because of the amount awarded and partly because the plaintiff was a sitting judge, said Bruce D. Brown, an attorney who is representing the Boston Herald in its appeal of a $2 million libel judgment awarded last year to a Massachusetts state court judge.

"If you were to look at the range of libel judgments, it's certainly on the high end," Brown said.

The newspaper found to be at fault, the Kane County Chronicle, is a daily paper owned by the Shaw Newspaper Group. It circulates mostly in St. Charles, Geneva and Batavia. Its circulation is about 14,000, down from 38,000 in 2003.

Brown said the U.S. Supreme Court set the libel standard very high for public officials: A plaintiff must prove the newspaper knew it was publishing false information or had serious doubts about its veracity. "Public officials are often successful in the courtroom at creating sympathy for the situation they found themselves in, but because of the substantial constitutional protections enjoyed by the press, approximately 70 percent of those verdicts have been overturned," Brown said.

Attorney Stephen Rosenfeld, who defended the Chronicle and its former columnist, Bill Page, said the verdict would be challenged in post-trial motions and likely on appeal.

"I think it does have a chilling effect on the 1st Amendment and the press' ability to criticize public officials, especially elected officials," Rosenfeld said.

The appeal could raise a host of legal issues because all but two of the sitting Illinois Supreme Court justices testified during the two-week trial, Rosenfeld said.

Illinois has some history of interesting judges.