Star wins appeal over reporting on former judge who fired gunshot in confrontation

The Arizona Daily Star and two of its journalists did not defame a Tucson attorney, the state Court of Appeals has ruled.

The ruling came in an action taken to the appeals court by the Star after Superior Court Judge Cynthia T. Kuhn had refused to dismiss a lawsuit against the Star and the journalists.

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The case involves a story and a column about a Tucson judge’s confrontation with a stalker. In February 2021, Adam Watters, then a Pima County justice of the peace, fired a gun into the ground during a confrontation with Fei Qin, a man who had been stalking Watters, and threatened to kill Qin, according to police and court documents.

At Qin’s trial for stalking, a jury heard evidence that Watters’ family was distressed after several incidents in which garbage linked to Qin was left on their lawn. About the same time, the judge’s truck tires were slashed twice.

Qin was sentenced to 1 ½ years in state prison for stalking the judge, and the Pinal County Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Watters. Later, at a hearing before the Arizona Commission on Judicial Conduct, Watters agreed to a resolution forbidding him from further service as a judicial officer after his term, which expired at the end of 2022.

The defamation lawsuit was filed by Watters’ daughter, local attorney Caitlin Watters, who was present during the confrontation with Qin, and was armed with a shotgun and in a hidden position.

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The suit alleged that a March 2021 news article by Star reporter Carol Ann Alaimo incorrectly implied that the Caitlin Watters quit her job as a Pima County prosecutor in connection with the incident. The lawsuit also alleged that a subsequent opinion column by Star columnist Tim Steller included false and misleading statements.

The appeals court decision was authored by Judge Michael F. Kelly with the concurrence of Presiding Judge Karl C. Eppich and Judge Christopher J. O’Neil, the other two members of the panel that heard the case.

Kelly’s decision said the Court of Appeals did not find statements in the two articles to be defamatory.

But “Even were we to reach a contrary conclusion as to the defamatory nature of the statements in question, we would conclude the respondent judge erred in denying the motion for summary judgment based on a lack of actual malice,” Kelly wrote. “Actual malice” is a legal standard in defamation cases applying to plaintiffs who are deemed to be public figures. Such a plaintiff must prove that a defamatory statement was made “with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

The decision filed Thursday afternoon remanded the case to Kuhn’s court “with instructions to grant summary judgment” in favor of the Star.