Roy Moore, the previous chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court docket, came to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, asking the justices to dam a ruling by the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the eleventh Circuit from going into impact whereas he appeals that call. If the decrease court docket’s determination will not be placed on maintain however he finally prevails, Moore advised the justices, he might not be capable of recuperate the $8.2 million that the jury awarded him.
Moore was twice faraway from his place as chief justice – as soon as in 2003, when he disregarded a federal court docket order to take away a Ten Commandments monument that he had positioned within the constructing the place the Alabama Supreme Court docket sits, and once more in 2016, for refusing to observe the U.S. Supreme Court docket’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, recognizing a constitutional proper to same-sex marriage. The dispute through which he’s asking the justices to intervene, nonetheless, stems from his 2017 marketing campaign for a seat within the U.S. Senate, throughout a particular election to fill the emptiness created by the resignation of Sen. Jeff Periods to function legal professional basic in the course of the first Trump administration.
Moore, who misplaced the particular election to Democrat Doug Jones, filed a lawsuit in federal court docket towards Senate Majority PAC, whose web site describes the group’s mission as to “[p]rotect and broaden the variety of Democrats within the U.S. Senate.” Moore contended that the PAC created “a marketing campaign commercial that falsely portrayed Roy S. Moore as a person who solicited intercourse from a fourteen-year-old lady”—one thing, Moore says, that “was not true.”
A jury agreed with Moore that the PAC had defamed him – particularly, that the group had “revealed that falsehood with precise malice,” the usual for proving defamation beneath the Supreme Court docket’s landmark 1964 determination in New York Times v. Sullivan.
The PAC appealed to the eleventh Circuit, which threw out the jury’s verdict, prompting Moore to come to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. He emphasised that if the mandate – the formal doc permitting the eleventh Circuit’s ruling to enter impact – is issued and the $8.2 million bond that ensures fee of the jury’s verdict is launched earlier than he can ask the Supreme Court docket to evaluation the decrease court docket’s ruling, “the judgment he obtained after trial might be misplaced as a sensible matter earlier than this Court docket can decide whether or not evaluation is warranted.”
The court docket of appeals, Moore wrote, is scheduled to concern the mandate “on or about” June 15. Justice Clarence Thomas, who initially fields emergency appeals from the eleventh Circuit, has not but instructed the PAC to answer Moore’s submitting.
Really helpful Quotation: Amy Howe, Roy Moore recordsdata emergency software with Supreme Court docket on $8.2 million jury award, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 17, 2026, 3:25 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/roy-moore-files-emergency-application-with-supreme-court-on-jury-award/