ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140082
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ANNAPOLIS, MD.
SOURCE: Associated Press
A Senate candidate who lost is suing her opponent for using words like ``guilty'' and ``convicted'' when talking about her in the closing days of the race.
Not only did the loaded language cost Ruthann Aron the election, but ``her life as she knew it was taken away'' because she was defamed by Bill Brock, attorney Geoffrey Gitner told a civil court jury as the lawsuit went to trial Tuesday.
He said Brock's comments and commercials dealing with civil suits filed against Aron by associates in a real estate deal were deliberately crafted to make it appear she was a convicted criminal.
Brock, a former Tennessee senator and national Republican chairman, said during a break in the trial, ``I don't think anything I said was out of line.'' He won the 1994 GOP primary against Aron, but lost in the general election to Democratic incumbent Sen. Paul Sarbanes.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, is a test of how far political candidates can go in criticizing opponents before they cross the line into slander and libel. Lawyers involved in the case say a ruling in Aron's favor could change the face of political campaigns, but a legal expert disagreed.
``I just don't think in the end people will look at it and say, `My God, candidates better walk carefully in the future,''' said Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.
Even in this era of negative campaigning, lawsuits over claims made during political campaigns are a rarity, Sabato said.
But Joyce Terhes, chairwoman of the Maryland Republican Party, is worried about the impact.
If Aron wins, ``people are always going to be looking over their shoulder afraid of what's going to happen,'' she said. ``It would be more difficult to recruit people'' to run for office.
The dispute centers on Brock advertisements and a news conference he held a week before the 1994 primary, a time when a poll showed him and Aron in a statistical tie with a large undecided vote.
Brock ran about 1,000 television and radio ad spots dealing with the $300,000 Aron, a developer, paid to settle lawsuits brought by partners in two real estate deals.
Juries ruled against her in two of the suits, but both were settled outside court, one while the judgment was on appeal and the other after a judge threw out the jury award.
Brock's lawyer, Ben Cotten, told jurors the advertisements were not libelous because they used phrases such as ``out of bounds,'' ``wrongdoing'' and ``trouble obeying the law,'' which are not associated only with criminal actions.
At the news conference before the primary, Brock used words such as ``found guilty,'' ``fines'' and ``convicted by a jury.''
Cotten said those words were uttered innocently in the heat of the moment as the two candidates held side-by-side news conferences outside a county courthouse.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB