Supreme Court Denies Trump Appeal of Carroll $5M Verdict

Supreme Court Won't Hear Trump's Appeal of E. Jean Carroll's $5 Million Verdict

The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on June 29, 2026 in Trump v. Carroll, No. 25-573, leaving intact a federal jury's 2023 verdict and the Second Circuit's affirmance finding Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, finalizing the roughly $5 million judgment.

Information last verified on July 3, 2026. This is a developing story; we update it as the record changes.

Jurisdiction scope: This article covers a federal certiorari denial by the U.S. Supreme Court and the constitutional actual-malice standard for public-figure defamation, which applies nationwide under the First Amendment. The specific elements of a defamation claim, available damages, and procedure still vary by state; see defamation laws by state for jurisdiction-specific detail.

What Happened

On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court's order list for that date included a one-line entry denying the petition for certiorari in Trump, President of U.S. v. Carroll, E. Jean, No. 25-573. The denial came without an opinion, without comment, and without any noted dissent. Because the Court declines the vast majority of petitions it receives, a denial like this one simply lets the lower court's judgment stand; it does not mean the Court agrees or disagrees with the result.

Trump filed the petition on November 10, 2025, after losing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The petition raised three evidentiary questions: whether Federal Rule of Evidence 415 overrides Rule 403's balancing test for temporally remote propensity evidence in sexual-assault cases; whether Rule 413(d) covers prior conduct that was not itself a crime; and whether Rule 404(b)(2) permits "modus operandi" evidence without an independent, non-propensity purpose. All three questions concerned the trial court's decision to let jurors hear testimony from two other women describing past encounters with Trump, along with the 2005 recording in which Trump described grabbing women without consent.

Those evidentiary rulings came out of the underlying case, tried in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in April and May 2023. The jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s (though it did not find rape) and that he defamed her through 2022 statements calling her allegations a hoax. The jury's award totaled approximately $5 million, split between compensatory and punitive damages tied to the battery finding and separate damages tied to the defamation finding, including a reputation-repair component. Trump appealed, and on December 30, 2024, a Second Circuit panel affirmed the judgment in full, holding that the district court acted within its discretion in admitting the challenged evidence under Rules 413 and 415 and that any arguable error was harmless.

This case, sometimes called Carroll II, is legally and procedurally distinct from Carroll's earlier suit over Trump's 2019 statement that she was "not my type," which produced an $83.3 million defamation verdict in January 2024 (Carroll I). The Second Circuit affirmed that judgment on September 8, 2025, and denied rehearing en banc on April 29, 2026, over a recorded dissent from several judges. Trump's lawyers have said he intends to seek Supreme Court review of that judgment, but as of this writing no petition had been filed; a Second Circuit stay keeps him from having to pay the $83.3 million in the meantime. The June 29 order resolves only Carroll II, the $5 million verdict; the $83.3 million Carroll I judgment remains on its own appellate track and was not before the Court in this order.

What the Law Actually Says

The federal constitutional standard governing this case comes from New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), which held that a public official (later extended to public figures generally) suing for defamation must prove the defendant made a false statement "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not," a standard known as actual malice (376 U.S. at 279 to 280). The plaintiff must prove actual malice by clear and convincing evidence, not by a mere preponderance. Carroll, as a public figure, had to meet that higher bar on her defamation claim, separate from the elements of her battery (sexual-abuse) claim under New York law, which does not require proof of actual malice. For the general building blocks any defamation plaintiff must establish, see the elements of a defamation claim; because the underlying suit was filed in New York, New York's specific defamation rules also shaped what Carroll had to prove and what she could recover, an example of how defamation damages can vary by state even where the constitutional floor is federal.

A certiorari denial changes none of that. The Supreme Court grants review in only a small fraction of the petitions filed each term, and it typically does not explain why a petition is denied. A denial is not an endorsement of the lower court's reasoning, is not a ruling on the merits, and creates no binding precedent beyond the Second Circuit's own opinion, which now stands as the final word between these parties. The actual-malice standard from Sullivan remains exactly as it was before June 29, 2026, nationwide.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

This order fits a pattern the Court has followed repeatedly in recent terms: leaving large, closely watched defamation and related civil verdicts undisturbed by declining review, even where a petitioner raises evidentiary or doctrinal arguments that draw significant public attention. We saw the same posture on the same day in Dershowitz v. Cable News Network, where the Court also denied certiorari, though that denial drew a recorded dissent from Justices Thomas and Gorsuch urging reconsideration of Sullivan itself. Here, by contrast, no dissent was noted, a distinction worth preserving rather than blurring; the two denials are not equivalent signals about the Court's appetite to revisit the actual-malice standard.

It is also worth separating what this order does from what it does not do. It resolves Carroll II's evidentiary questions by simply declining to take them up; it says nothing about the still-pending Carroll I matter, where Trump has pursued a separate and much larger $83.3 million judgment through its own appellate and potential certiorari process, a dispute we continue to track alongside other actual-malice litigation such as Roy Moore's pending Supreme Court application. Readers should not infer from this denial how the Court might handle that separate case, or any other pending petition touching Sullivan.

How This Affects You

This order does not change the law that applies to defamation claims generally. Public officials and public figures, a category that can include celebrities, executives, and people who have voluntarily entered public controversies, still must prove actual malice under Sullivan to win a defamation claim over a false statement of fact. Private individuals typically face a lower fault standard, which varies by state and often turns on whether the speech involved a matter of public concern. Because states differ on the precise elements, available defenses, and damages caps for defamation claims, the specific rules that would apply to any individual situation depend on which state's law governs and whether the plaintiff qualifies as a public or private figure. This article describes the general legal framework and does not assess any specific dispute.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. This article covers a federal certiorari denial and the constitutional standard for public-figure defamation, and reflects sources verified on July 3, 2026. Laws change; consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Sources

• Supreme Court of the United States, Order List: 609 U.S., Monday, June 29, 2026 (official order list showing certiorari denied in Trump v. Carroll)
• Supreme Court docket, No. 25-573, Trump, President of U.S. v. Carroll, E. Jean (official case docket, filing and disposition history)
• Carroll v. Trump, No. 23-793 (2d Cir. Dec. 30, 2024) (Second Circuit opinion affirming the jury verdict)
• New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) (Cornell Legal Information Institute, actual-malice standard)

Related articles

• Defamation laws by state
• New York defamation laws
• How much can you sue for defamation
• The elements of a defamation claim
• Supreme Court denies Dershowitz's CNN defamation appeal
• Roy Moore's Supreme Court defamation application, explained

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Last updated: 2026-07-03. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-07-03.