A TV ad being run by Democratic state Senate candidate R.J. Palmer will remain on the air despite legal action by his opponent Dr. Ralph Alvarado.
The commercial, which features edited courtroom audio, suggests the Winchester Republican deliberately prescribed painkillers to a known criminal. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that a Scott Circuit Court judge declined to grant a restraining order against the ad, which Alvarado has dubbed “defamation.”
While Judge Robert Johnson conceded that there are valid concerns with the editing of the ad, he added that blocking the commercial would be unconstitutional according to the current stance of the Kentucky Supreme Court.
If a trial were held and jurors agreed that the Palmer campaign intentionally spread a falsehood with actual malice, Alvarado could be entitled to damages.
