Roy Moore takes fight over $8.2 million defamation award to US Supreme Court

Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is taking his high-stakes legal battle over an $8.2 million defamation award to the highest court in the land. Moore has officially petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency stay following a recent ruling that stripped away his massive lower court victory.

The Origins of the Dispute

The conflict centers on a series of television advertisements aired by the Senate Majority PAC during Moore’s 2017 bid for the U.S. Senate. In 2022, a federal jury sided with Moore, finding that the PAC’s campaign materials were defamatory and awarding him $8.2 million in damages.

However, that judgment hit a wall this past April. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the verdict, determining that Moore failed to meet the "actual malice" threshold required for public figures—a standard established by the 1964 landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan.

Emergency Bid for a Stay

On Friday, Moore’s attorney, Jeffrey Wittenbrink, filed an emergency application for a stay to prevent the district court from issuing a mandate. According to reporting from SCOTUS blog, this move is designed to keep the bond in place, ensuring the potential $8.2 million payout remains viable should Moore eventually prevail in his planned petition for a writ of certiorari.

Wittenbrink remains firm that the original jury correctly identified malicious intent in the PAC's campaign messaging. "This case arises from a campaign advertisement that falsely portrayed Roy S. Moore as a man who solicited sex from a fourteen-year-old girl," Wittenbrink argued in the filing. "That accusation was not true. It was not what the underlying source material said. And it was not an innocent mistake."

Courtroom Standoff

The emergency request is currently before Justice Clarence Thomas, who serves as the circuit justice for the 11th Circuit. To date, Thomas has not ordered the Senate Majority PAC to provide a response.

Previously, Ezra Reese—counsel for the Senate Majority PAC—lauded the April appeals court ruling as a "total vindication," asserting that the ads accurately reflected reporting regarding allegations from the 2017 campaign cycle. Conversely, Moore’s legal team contends the advertisements masterfully spliced separate news reports to fabricate a false narrative through "sequence, juxtaposition, pacing, and visual presentation."

The 11th Circuit previously denied Moore’s request for a stay on June 8. The legal saga continues to unfold, marking another chapter in the aftermath of the 2017 special election where Moore fell to Democrat Doug Jones after the ad in question aired over 500 times.

This follows previous litigation involving Moore, including a 2022 trial where a Montgomery County jury found that neither Moore nor his accuser, Leah Corfman, had successfully proven defamation against the other.