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Illinois judge rules Donald Trump is disqualified from the state's 2024 election ballot
(www.usatoday.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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If you want to be safe from libel and defamation cases, it's "alleged" until you've been found guilty/liable at trial, and that hasn't happened to Trump yet.
I don't think that's true. The Colorado state supreme Court says he engaged in an insurrection. Truth is a defense.
The truth is up to interpretation. You can say what you believe to be the truth, but somebody with a lot of money and access to experienced lawyers can cripple you with a lawsuit regardless.
Do you really want to engage in a trial that could theoretically take years? Spending untold sums of money in order to defend yourself? Even if you will probably win, you're tying up a lot of capital and manpower to fight it. For what? The difference between an article that has the word "alleged" or not?
The risk-reward just isn't there.
With that logic couldn't you basically never tell the truth about anyone sufficiently rich and vindictive enough to pursue you in court? Like Trump could be sitting in jail, and we'd still be saying alleged because he might tie you up in court?
You simply refer to it as "alleged" until found guilty/liable when referencing someone doing something criminal or similar.
They could also get by with quoting that judges opinion, so long as they made it clear what they are quoting.
But a judge presenting an opinion regarding a ballot removal in which the accused was not entitled to a thorough defense and the standard being held was "whatever the judge personally felt best" rather than the more rigorous standards of a criminal trial was probably enough for their legal department to insist on the "alleged".
and you just basically described why news organizations prefer to use alleged
So if Trump is sitting in jail, found criminally guilty in his indictments, USA today would be justified in what, calling him allegedly guilty, in case he feels like bankrupting them with his money? I find this very hard to beleive.
If he is found guilty, he could make the argument that publications making that claim prior to the verdict swayed the jury's opinion. One would think an informed jury is always a good thing, but American courts are very strict about the information they present to the jury and in which context to allow them to make decisions. Not that it is likely, but it could result in a mistrial if it was proven that any juror read any news from the publication making the claim.
After he is found guilty, and assuming the verdict stands, publications are free to say he was convicted of X, Y, or Z freely.
Once he's been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court they'll drop the alleged.
This isn't even a Trump specific thing, they use "alleged" or "accused" to refer to any crime committed by anyone that they haven't been found guilty/liable for. Or will describe them as being arrested for specific charges or a specific incident if that's what they're reporting on. But in that case , they'll refer to them as being arrested for X and then being alleged or accused of X, but not simply that they did X.
But Trump was found, in multiple courts, to have engaged in an insurrection. He does not need to have a criminal finding of that for it to be true and accepted fact in a court. I'm sorry, but this is a hard disagree from me, when state courts find as a matter of fact that he did engage in an insurrection its not an allegation anymore.
once he is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom, it's much less risky. still risky, actually, but much less so. i remember during trump's term he actually wanted to change libel laws specifically for stuff like this - you would have to be extremely careful what you say so you don't get sued