The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a case brought by a familiar and controversial figure stemming from President Donald Trump’s first term in office.
Justices declined to take up former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore’s attempt to restore an $8.2 million defamation verdict stemming from a television advertisement aired during his contentious 2017 campaign.
The justices rejected without comment hearing Moore’s appeal, leaving intact a federal appeals court ruling that overturned the multimillion-dollar jury award.
The decision is a victory for Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic-aligned super PAC that funded the advertisement and maintained throughout the litigation that its claims were substantially truthful.
The dispute dates to Alabama’s 2017 special election for the U.S. Senate, when Moore, a Republican and former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice, faced Democrat Doug Jones.
During the campaign, The Washington Post reported allegations from women who said Moore pursued or had sexual encounters with them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. Moore denied allegations of sexual misconduct.
Senate Majority PAC subsequently aired an advertisement featuring statements from Republican voters criticizing Moore.
The ad included a statement from one voter saying, “Roy Moore was actually banned from the Gadsden mall for soliciting sex from young girls.”
Moore sued, arguing that the advertisement falsely portrayed him as someone who solicited sex from minors and that the PAC knew the allegation was false.
The super PAC defended the advertisement by arguing that the statement was substantially true when considered in the context of reporting available during the campaign.
A federal jury in Alabama sided with Moore in 2022, however, Jurors awarded him $8.2 million, including $8 million in punitive damages, after concluding that the advertisement defamed him. A federal judge subsequently upheld the verdict.
But the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the award in 2024.
The appeals court concluded that Moore had failed to provide sufficient evidence that Senate Majority PAC acted with “actual malice,” the demanding constitutional standard that public figures generally must satisfy to prevail in defamation lawsuits.
Under the Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, a public official or public figure must generally demonstrate that a defamatory statement was made with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for whether it was true.
The 11th Circuit said the evidence in Moore’s case did not meet that threshold.
The appeals court also noted that the super PAC relied on news reports and other publicly available information when producing the advertisement.
Moore asked the Supreme Court to review that decision, arguing that the appeals court improperly substituted its judgment for that of the jury.
His attorneys argued that jurors had heard the evidence, assessed the credibility of witnesses and concluded that the PAC knowingly or recklessly aired a false accusation.
Senate Majority PAC urged the Supreme Court to stay out of the case.
The group argued that the 11th Circuit correctly applied longstanding First Amendment protections for political speech and that Moore had failed to establish actual malice.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the appeal does not constitute an endorsement of every aspect of the lower court’s reasoning. It simply means the 11th Circuit’s judgment remains controlling in Moore’s case.
The underlying controversy played a major role in the 2017 Alabama election.
Moore had defeated appointed Sen. Luther Strange in the Republican primary and initially entered the general election in a heavily Republican state with a substantial political advantage.
The race changed dramatically after allegations concerning Moore’s past interactions with teenage girls became public.
Moore repeatedly denied sexual misconduct and accused his opponents and the media of attempting to derail his campaign.
Jones ultimately defeated Moore by roughly 22,000 votes, becoming the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in decades.
Moore unsuccessfully sought the Republican Senate nomination again in 2020.
Monday’s Supreme Court action effectively brings his years-long effort to recover the $8.2 million defamation award to an end.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
