The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear President Donald Trump’s appeal of a $5 million civil verdict involving writer E. Jean Carroll, leaving lower court rulings in place without further review. This decision effectively closes the final avenue of review for President Trump in the initial civil case. The high court issued its order without comment or noted dissents, a common practice in such matters.
The appeal stemmed from a civil lawsuit filed by Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and writer, who first publicly accused President Trump during his presidency. In 2023, a New York jury found President Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the mid-1990s in a Manhattan department store dressing room and for defaming her through public denials. While the jury rejected a separate claim of rape, it found liability for sexual abuse under civil standards and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
President Trump has consistently denied Carroll’s allegations, maintaining that the trial was unfair and prejudicial. His legal team argued that the jurors were improperly exposed to evidence that should not have been admitted during the proceedings. This included testimony from other women who had made unrelated allegations of sexual misconduct against President Trump. Additionally, his attorneys cited a 2005 "Access Hollywood" recording, in which President Trump was heard making vulgar remarks about women, contending that its inclusion improperly influenced the jury’s assessment of the case, as reported by USA Today. President Trump's petition to the Supreme Court further argued that the case involved decades-old claims that should not have been relitigated and that the proceedings placed an improper burden on a sitting president. His legal representatives also asserted that Carroll’s allegations were unsubstantiated and that the trial court erred in allowing certain evidence to be presented to the jury, which they claimed compromised the fairness of the trial, according to The Hill.
Carroll’s attorneys countered these arguments, asserting that the disputed evidence was properly admitted to support her claims and to establish what they described as a broader pattern relevant to the case. They also highlighted that appellate courts had already thoroughly reviewed and upheld the trial judge’s evidentiary rulings. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit had previously rejected President Trump’s challenges, concluding that even if any errors occurred during the trial, they did not ultimately affect the outcome of the proceedings, CBS News reported. Carroll’s legal team urged the Supreme Court justices to reject the appeal, stating that President Trump had not raised any novel legal issue that would warrant the high court’s review. They also argued that there was no conflict among appellate courts that would justify the Supreme Court’s intervention in the matter.
It is important to note that Monday’s Supreme Court decision applies only to the first civil verdict and the associated $5 million award. In a separate legal development, a second jury in 2024 awarded Carroll $83.3 million after finding President Trump liable for additional defamatory statements made after the initial verdict. That subsequent case remains under a separate appeal process and was not addressed by the Supreme Court’s order issued this week.
With the Supreme Court’s rejection of the appeal, the lower court judgment for the initial $5 million verdict remains in place. This marks another setback in President Trump’s ongoing efforts to overturn the civil verdict, leaving intact the jury’s findings of sexual abuse and defamation, and the monetary award to E. Jean Carroll. The ruling underscores the finality of the judicial process at the highest level for this specific judgment.
