Roy Moore asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to stop an 11th Circuit ruling from taking effect while he tries to keep an $8.2 million jury award alive. He told the justices that if the mandate issues before review, he may never be able to recover the money the jury gave him.
The filing puts Moore, twice removed as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, back before the court that first fields emergency appeals from the 11th Circuit. He asked Justice Clarence Thomas to hold the lower court ruling in place while the justices decide whether to take the case, and Thomas had not yet ordered Senate Majority PAC to respond.
The dispute traces back to Moore's 2017 Senate campaign, when he lost the special election to Doug Jones after the vacancy created by Jeff Sessions's resignation. Moore sued Senate Majority PAC in federal court, saying it ran a campaign advertisement that falsely portrayed him as a man who solicited sex from a fourteen-year-old girl. A jury agreed, found that the PAC had published the falsehood with actual malice, and awarded him $8.2 million.
The 11th Circuit later threw out that verdict, which is why Moore is now asking for emergency relief. He says the court is scheduled to issue its mandate on or about June 15, and that once that happens the judgment he obtained after trial could be lost as a practical matter before the Supreme Court can decide whether review is warranted.
That urgency is sharpened by Moore's long record of clashes with higher courts. He was removed in 2003 after disregarding a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the building where the Alabama Supreme Court sits, and removed again in 2016 for refusing to follow Obergefell v. Hodges. This time, the question is narrower but no less consequential: whether a jury's $8.2 million finding survives long enough for the Supreme Court to consider it, or whether the 11th Circuit's ruling takes effect first.
For Moore, the next step rests with Thomas and, after that, with the full court. If the justice declines to act, or if the court later refuses review, the 11th Circuit's judgment will stand and the award Moore won at trial may be gone for good.
