Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday declined to revive Roy Moore’s $8.2 million defamation verdict, leaving in place an appeals court ruling that erased the former Alabama chief justice’s award against a Democratic-aligned super PAC.

Moore had asked Thomas, who serves as the circuit justice for the 11th Circuit, for an emergency order blocking the appellate decision from taking effect while he prepares a petition to the full Supreme Court.

Thomas denied the request and provided no legal reasoning.

The dispute traces back to Moore’s 2017 U.S. Senate campaign. In 2022, a federal jury found that the Senate Majority PAC had defamed Moore through a television ad and awarded him $8.2 million in damages.

In April 2026, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated that award. The three-judge panel ruled that Moore, as a public figure, failed to present clear and convincing evidence that the ad was published with actual malice, the standard established in the landmark 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan. The panel ordered the trial court to enter judgment for the PAC.

The ad at the center of the case claimed Moore had been barred from a shopping mall for soliciting sex from young girls. Moore’s attorneys argued the ad welded together separate reports into a single false charge.

“That was the lie. It said it through sequence, juxtaposition, pacing, and visual presentation,” Moore’s attorney wrote in a court filing. “It took separate pieces and welded them into one false charge that no source had actually made.”

The ad ran more than 500 times during the campaign, which Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones.

Moore’s legal team plans to pursue a full Supreme Court review on the merits of the case. Thomas’s denial leaves the award vacated while that effort proceeds.

Sawyer Knowles is a state and political reporter for Yellowhammer News. You may contact him at [email protected].