MONTGOMERY, Alabama (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Roy Moore's push to restore an $8.2 million defamation verdict over a 2017 Senate race ad funded by a Democratic-aligned super PAC.
Justices declined to hear Moore’s appeal of a lower court decision that vacated the large verdict. The outcome keeps in place the decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that erased a jury's decision that Moore had been defamed by the ad.
It was a victory for Senate Majority PAC, which funded the ad, and argued it was truthful.
The decision comes months after the court in June rejected Moore's emergency request to put the 11th Circuit decision on hold while he appealed.
Moore, a former Alabama chief justice, known for his hardline stances opposing same-sex marriage and supporting the public display of the Ten Commandments, lost the 2017 Senate race after his campaign was rocked by misconduct allegations.
Leigh Corfman said Moore inappropriately touched her in 1979 when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. Moore denied the accusation. Other women said Moore dated them, or asked them out on dates, when they were older teens.
Senate Majority PAC funded Highway 31, a group that ran an advertising blitz against Moore during the Senate race.
Moore filed a defamation lawsuit against Senate Majority PAC centered on a television ad. Moore’s attorneys argued the ad juxtaposed statements and partial quotes from separate news articles that, when read together, falsely implied he was accused of soliciting sex from young girls at a shopping mall.
Moore's attorneys called it a “fabricated accusation, never made by any reporter” that was “broadcast into Alabama homes 533 times in the final days of a United States Senate election.”
A federal jury in 2022 agreed with Moore and awarded him $8.2 million in damages. The appeals court vacated the verdict after finding Moore failed to prove the organization acted with malice, one of the legal standards for cases involving public figures.
Moore appealed to the Supreme Court.
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Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.
