Former President Donald J. Trump has formally asked the Supreme Court of the United States to review a landmark civil judgment that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. The petition follows a jury verdict in May 2023 that awarded Ms. Carroll approximately $5 million after finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation and a separate later jury award of roughly $83.3 million tied to defamation claims arising from his public statements denying her allegations.
In its filing, Trump’s legal team contends that several key rulings during the trials were legally flawed, arguing in particular that testimony from other women who accused Trump of similar conduct should not have been permitted, and that the admission of the widely-publicised “Access Hollywood” tape was improper. They also assert that the evidence failed to meet required standards, noting there were no eyewitnesses or video recording of the alleged incident, no police report or immediate investigation at the time, and they describe the allegations as politically motivated.
Carroll testified at the 2023 trial that the assault occurred in a dressing room at the luxury New York department store Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s. The jury determined she had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Trump sexually abused her (though not rape under the narrow New York statutory definition in effect at that time) and that he had defamed her when he publicly denied the abuse in 2019 and again in 2022.
The appeal that Trump is now raising to the Supreme Court represents more than just a bid to overturn the monetary awards — it seeks to challenge underlying legal doctrine, including the extent of presidential immunity in civil litigation, and how evidentiary and procedural rulings in high-profile trials ought to be handled. Because the lower appellate court (the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) upheld the verdicts, Trump’s legal team is asking the Supreme Court to take the case and reverse or remand the rulings.
Should the Supreme Court decide to hear the case, the implications could be far-reaching. The matter touches not only on the particular dispute between Carroll and Trump, but also on how courts treat statements made by a president in his official capacity, the limits of civil liability for former presidents, and how high-stakes defamation and sexual-abuse civil cases are managed in the U.S. legal system. If the Court declines to hear the petition, the lower court rulings stand, and the judgments remain enforceable.
Carroll’s attorneys have responded that they do not believe Trump’s petition will raise “any legal issues” worthy of Supreme Court review effectively urging the Court to let the judgments remain intact.
The battle now turns to whether the Supreme Court will grant certiorari, a decision that often takes months, and which will determine whether this case becomes a landmark precedent or remains settled at lower levels of the judiciary.
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