A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday defended his decision to reject Sarah Palin’s defamation case against The New York Times during jury deliberations last month, saying that the former Alaska governor had “wholly failed to prove her case even to the minimum standard required by law.”

In a 68-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York acknowledged the controversy surrounding his Feb. 14 ruling, the news of which was divulged to several jurors in the form of push notifications sent to their phones.