It was a stinging loss for Trump when the high court turned down his appeal in the matter with Carroll. The upshot is that the $5 million he has to pay is not going anywhere. In doing so, the court has put a final stamp on the 2023 finding that he abused the writer in the mid-90s and then made matters worse by putting out denials.
There was no fanfare from the justices – just a short order and nothing more to say about it, which is how they usually handle a refusal to review. It’s a clear win for Carroll and it slams the door on any further action from the nation’s top court in this instance.
What the Supreme Court’s refusal means
You won’t see the court re-litigating the facts or second-guessing the jury. They are simply allowing the lower courts to have their say and making the $5 million tab against Trump official.
Put simply, here is where things stand for both sides:
– The $5 million is owed
– No one is giving a reason why
– This is about the civil case at hand
How we got here with the Carroll case
Back in the spring of 1996, after a run-in in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in Manhattan, Carroll says Trump made a move on her. A federal trial in 2023 put a name to what happened: sexual abuse, followed by public defamations from Trump.
They didn’t call it rape under New York law, but the case was made possible by the state’s Adult Survivors Act, a window of time for old claims to be heard. Trump has been in the habit of flatly denying it all.
An appeals court had already put a thumb on the scale in favor of the trial’s fairness, including how evidence was handled. So Trump made a play for the Supreme Court. They said no.
The arguments the justices let be
In his appeal, Trump put forward the idea that the trial was anything but fair. He contended the judge overstepped by letting in testimony from two other women with old accusations of his own, and that such riled-up evidence shouldn’t have been on the table. His papers made the case that it colored the jury’s view.
‘This mistreatment of a President cannot be allowed to stand,’ wrote his lawyer, Justin D. Smith. Trump has stood by his denials of Carroll and the other two. He also put up a fight over some of the other material, like the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape, in a bid for a do-over.
On the other side, Carroll’s lawyers asked the court to leave well enough alone. They made the point that the other women’s stories were pertinent and the judge did his job. ‘This question is not worthy of review,’ Roberta Kaplan put it to the court.
To make the issues plain, these are the points that are settled in this case:
– Sexual abuse and defamation were found by the jury
– The judge called the shots on evidence and they were upheld
– The Supreme Court is not looking at it any further
What remains unresolved
All of this is with respect to the $5 million. There is a whole other $83.3 million in damages from a later suit over his denials that is still in the lower courts. The Supreme Court has had no part in that one yet.
The order also makes for a wider point: if the high court doesn’t step in, the appellate decision is the last word on the trial’s conduct. For Carroll, it’s validation. For Trump, it’s a setback with a price tag to match.
Why this matters now
The justices didn’t see a legal issue here that needed their attention. It leaves Trump with less to work with in one of the cases everyone is watching, and it puts the 2023 jury’s word in stone. From here, the focus will be on the $83.3 million appeal.
