Prosecutors
Former Wisconsin DA Loses Libel Appeal
Posted Jun 23, 2008, 06:58 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A Wisconsin appeals court has dismissed a libel case filed by a former Wisconsin prosecutor against a newspaper and a nonprofit official.
The court said no reasonable jury would find the defendants had acted with actual malice, the Wisconsin Law Journal reports. Former District Attorney Vincent Biskupic of Outagamie County had sued after an official of a domestic violence agency was quoted as saying Biskupic had been convicted of bribery, a false statement.
The official, Stacey Cicero, said she was accurately quoted in the Shawano Leader but she had inadvertently used Biskupic’s name instead of that of a different district attorney who had been convicted of accepting bribes, according to the story.
The court said Biskupic had presented substantial evidence that journalistic standards had not been followed. Even so, the failure of the reporter to verify the information, without more, is not evidence of actual malice, the court said.
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