The Supreme Court on Monday blocked Roy Moore, a former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice and failed Senate candidate, from collecting an $8.2 million defamation award. The award stemmed from a Democratic campaign advertisement that aired during his unsuccessful 2017 Senate bid.
Moore, 79, had sought the Supreme Court's intervention after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal jury's 2022 finding against the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic-aligned group. Justice Clarence Thomas declined Moore's emergency application without explanation, a common practice in such cases.
Moore was the Republican nominee in a special election to replace Jeff Sessions, who had resigned from the Senate to become President Trump's first attorney general. Despite Trump's endorsement in Alabama, a state Trump had won by a significant margin in the 2016 presidential election, Moore narrowly lost to Democrat Doug Jones. The loss followed allegations from three women accusing Moore of sexual assault, with two claiming the encounters occurred when they were underage.
The advertisement at the center of the lawsuit recounted some of these accusations. Moore's attorneys contended that the ad falsely implied he solicited sex from young girls at a shopping mall through a combination of statements and partial quotes from news articles. The ad began by asking, "What do people who know Roy Moore say?" and stated, "Moore was actually banned from the Gadsden mall … for soliciting sex from young girls" and "One he approached was 14 and working as Santa’s helper."
Wendy Miller, who testified in the case, stated she met Moore when she was 14 and working as a Santa’s helper at a local mall. She recalled Moore making a comment about her appearance and offering to buy her a soda, and later asking her out, though her mother did not permit it. Miller also testified that while Moore may have been flirting, he did not solicit sex during their initial meeting.
The appeals court determined that the Senate Majority PAC had made a "negligent error at best" and that Moore had not proven the PAC acted with actual malice. The PAC had cited a sworn statement from J.D. Thomas, a former mall security guard, who stated he had told Moore not to return to the mall due to complaints from store managers about Moore making teenage employees uncomfortable. Moore maintained he was never banned from the shopping center.
Following the appeals court's decision, attorney Ezra Reese, representing the Senate Majority PAC, stated that the PAC "ran an advertisement that cited accurate reporting from major national news outlets detailing the women who bravely came forward with allegations about Moore’s inappropriate conduct." Reese argued that Democrats "told Alabama voters the truth" and that "voters correctly decided that they did not want a disgusting creep like Roy Moore representing them in the United States Senate."
Doug Jones served the remainder of Sessions' Senate term before being defeated in the 2020 election by Tommy Tuberville.