The Verdict Stands: A Jury Found Trump Liable for Sexual Abuse - And No Court Has Overturned It

There are defeats that can no longer be appealed, and there are defeats that people keep appealing because the appeal itself is a statement. On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the jury verdict holding him liable for the sexual abuse of writer E. Jean Carroll. The order was brief and unexplained, as is customary. Not a single Justice noted a dissent. Not one.

The verdict that now remains in place came from a 2023 jury trial. The jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in the spring of 1996 inside a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan after what had begun as a friendly encounter turned violent. The same jury also found that Trump defamed Carroll when he publicly denied her account in 2022. The award totaled $5 million. An additional $83.3 million was awarded in a second defamation trial that is currently on appeal and has not yet reached the Supreme Court.

Trump's attorneys argued that the trial court violated the rules of evidence. Specifically, they objected to Judge Lewis Kaplan allowing testimony from two additional women who also accused Trump of sexual misconduct - testimony the court determined was sufficiently similar to be relevant. The attorneys described the evidence as "highly inflammatory." Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, responded that the rulings were fully consistent with comparable cases across the country. "This question is not worthy of review," she wrote. The Supreme Court plainly agreed.

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There is one sentence in the court filings that deserves to be remembered. Trump's attorney, Justin D. Smith, wrote, "This mistreatment of a President cannot be allowed to stand." Smith has since been nominated by Trump for a seat on a federal court of appeals. That is not a comment on the independence of the judiciary. It is a comment on how this administration views the judiciary - as a tool, not as an independent check on power.

Carroll refused to be pushed aside. She has spent decades as a columnist and former television host. She endured Trump's attacks - he dismissed her as "not my type" and called her account a complete fabrication - without ever changing her own account of what happened. The jury believed her. Two courts upheld that verdict. The Supreme Court has now affirmed it a third time by saying nothing at all - which, in this case, means exactly this: the verdict stands.

Trump has had better luck in other cases. A New York civil fraud judgment of more than $500 million was overturned by an appellate court. In 2024, the Supreme Court granted him broad immunity from criminal prosecution. But the Carroll case belongs in a different category. It is not about taxes, business practices, or campaign finance. It is about a woman who testified before a jury about what happened to her inside a department store dressing room. And one court after another has concluded that she should be believed.

The philosophical dimension of this case does not lie in the law itself, but in what the law can and cannot accomplish in a case like this. No judgment can restore what Carroll lost - not the moment itself, not the years during which her account was publicly dismissed as a lie, not the exhaustion of fighting through multiple levels of the court system against a man who, as President, can place the resources of the federal government behind his personal defense. What the law can provide is recognition. The verdict is recognition. Monday's decision is recognition. Carroll took a risk by coming forward, a risk that discourages many women in similar situations. She knew her name would immediately be tied to Trump's denial, that millions of people would refuse to believe her, and that attacks on her credibility would be organized and relentless. She came forward anyway. Now the Supreme Court, without a single dissent, has decided that Trump's effort to overturn the jury's verdict does not even deserve review.

This is not a triumphant ending. Carroll is still fighting to collect the $83.3 million awarded in the second case. Trump will continue to deny the allegations, continue to appeal, and continue to nominate people he believes will be useful to him. But as of this Monday, one fact remains. A jury reached its verdict. Three levels of the judiciary have allowed that verdict to stand. The Supreme Court confirmed it through silence - and in this case, silence speaks loudly.

E. Jean Carroll has never changed her account of what happened. The courts have not changed theirs either.