MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A federal appeals court on Friday overturned an $8.2 million defamation verdict that former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore won against a Democratic super PAC over a 2017 campaign ad that referenced sexual misconduct allegations against him, including claims that he had pursued a teenage girl at a shopping mall. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Moore did not prove the PAC acted with actual malice, the standard public figures must meet in defamation cases.
The ruling closes, at least for now, another chapter in a yearslong legal fight that has kept Moore’s name in the headlines long after his political rise peaked and his standing in Alabama’s Republican establishment collapsed. The panel said the ad relied on reporting from news organizations and that the PAC’s mistake, at most, was negligent rather than malicious.
Moore, now 78, has spent decades as one of Alabama’s most polarizing political figures, built on courtroom culture-war battles and repeated defiance of the courts he once served. He became nationally known as the “Ten Commandments Judge” after promoting a religious monument in the state judicial building, and later was removed as chief justice after refusing to follow federal rulings on same-sex marriage.
His 2017 Senate campaign unraveled after allegations surfaced from multiple women, including Leigh Corfman, who said Moore sexually touched her in 1979 when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. Moore denied the allegations, but the race ended in defeat to Democrat Doug Jones and triggered a public reckoning that effectively froze his national ambitions.
The latest ruling is not Moore’s first courtroom loss tied to the 2017 allegations. Reports on the case say he previously lost other defamation suits connected to the same episode, including cases involving Washington Examiner writers and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.