The Supreme Court Wouldn’t Hear Trump’s Appeal. Now Carroll’s Lawyers Say It’s Time to Pay.

On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump v. Carroll, No. 25-573. That is a precise legal event and an important distinction: the Court did not rule that Donald Trump (R) sexually abused or defamed E. Jean Carroll. It simply refused to review the case — a discretionary decision the Court makes, without explanation, in the overwhelming majority of petitions it receives. No dissent was noted.

The practical effect, though, is exactly what Carroll’s lawyers say it is: Trump’s last ordinary appeal of the 2023 jury verdict — a civil finding of sexual abuse and defamation known in the litigation as “Carroll II” — is over. The $5 million verdict is now final. With interest accrued since 2023, Carroll’s team puts the number at roughly $5.8 million.

On July 1, Carroll’s attorneys filed papers before Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in the Southern District of New York demanding immediate release of that money, arguing that “that cooperation ends today. It is time for him to pay Carroll.” This is one strand of a two-verdict legal fight against Trump that is now worth tracking in pieces, because only one of the two verdicts just became final.

• $5 million — the May 9, 2023 Carroll II jury verdict for battery (sexual abuse) and defamation — now final after the June 29 cert denial · Source: 2nd Circuit opinion; PBS NewsHour
• ~$5.8 million — the Carroll II verdict with interest accrued since 2023, which Carroll's lawyers demanded be paid immediately in a July 1 filing · Source: AP; CNN
• $83.3 million — the separate, larger January 2024 Carroll I defamation verdict ($7.3M compensatory, $11M reputational repair, $65M punitive) — a different case, still on appeal · Source: Forbes
• No dissent noted — the Supreme Court's June 29, 2026 order denying certiorari in Trump v. Carroll, No. 25-573 — a discretionary refusal to hear the case, not a ruling on the merits · Source: SCOTUSblog; Supreme Court order list
• April 29, 2026 — the date the 2nd Circuit denied en banc rehearing in both Carroll cases in a single order; Judge Denny Chin wrote for the majority, Trump appointee Judge Steven Menashi dissented · Source: Courthouse News
• "Within the next month" — how Trump's lawyers described, in a June 2, 2026 letter, their expected timeline to file a second cert petition over the separate $83.3 million Carroll I verdict — not yet confirmed filed · Source: CNN

A certiorari denial is not a verdict. When the Supreme Court declines to grant cert, it means four of the nine justices did not vote to hear the case — nothing more. The Court denies the vast majority of the roughly 7,000–8,000 petitions it receives each term, typically without any explanation, and a denial carries no legal weight as precedent and no finding about who was right on the underlying facts. That is precisely what happened here: SCOTUSblog and the Court’s own June 29 order list confirm the Court simply declined to review the case, with no dissent from denial noted.

What the denial does mean is procedural, not substantive: it exhausts Trump’s ordinary path of appeal. The 2023 jury verdict in Carroll II had already been affirmed by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on December 30, 2024, and the full appeals court declined to rehear the case en banc on April 29, 2026. The Supreme Court was Trump’s last stop. With that stop closed, the verdict stands as a matter of law — final and, through the ordinary appellate process, unappealable. AP reported Trump’s team was reportedly weighing an unusual request asking the Court to reconsider its own denial, but as of this writing no such petition had been filed.

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“Carroll II” is the case that just ended. Carroll sued Trump in November 2022 for battery and defamation over statements he made in 2022, while he was a private citizen, denying her account of a 1990s encounter. A Manhattan federal jury reached its verdict on May 9, 2023: it found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for defaming her, and awarded her $5 million in damages. It is worth stating the jury’s finding precisely, because the nuance matters: under New York’s narrower legal definition of rape, the jury did not find Trump liable for rape specifically — it found him liable for sexual abuse and battery, a related but distinct legal finding, and for defamation.

The 2nd Circuit affirmed that verdict in full on December 30, 2024. Trump then asked the full appeals court to rehear the case en banc; on April 29, 2026, the court declined, in an order covering both Carroll cases. Judge Denny Chin wrote for the en banc majority; Judge Steven Menashi, a Trump appointee, dissented, citing what he argued was a split with the D.C. Circuit over whether a president can waive presidential immunity for pre-presidency conduct by testifying and litigating the underlying facts. That dissent is precisely the kind of disagreement that can sometimes persuade the Supreme Court to take a case — and it did not. It is important to be exact here: both Carroll II findings are civil verdicts, decided on a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. Trump has not been criminally convicted of any conduct related to Carroll, and he has denied the underlying allegations throughout.

It is easy to conflate the two Carroll cases, and doing so is the most common inaccuracy in casual coverage of this story — so it is worth separating them cleanly. “Carroll I” is the original defamation suit Carroll filed in 2019, after Trump publicly called her decades-old sexual-assault allegation a “hoax” and a “con job.” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan granted partial summary judgment on liability in that case in September 2023, and a separate Manhattan jury returned its own verdict in January 2024: $83.3 million — $7.3 million in compensatory damages, $11 million for reputational repair, and $65 million in punitive damages. That figure is entirely distinct from, and much larger than, the $5 million Carroll II verdict discussed above.

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Carroll I has moved on a similar but not identical timeline. The 2nd Circuit rejected Trump’s appeal of that verdict on September 8, 2025, and — in the same April 29, 2026 order that resolved Carroll II — the full appeals court also denied en banc rehearing of Carroll I. Unlike Carroll II, though, this case did not reach a Supreme Court decision. A federal judge granted a stay of judgment on May 11, 2026, pending a possible second Supreme Court petition, and in a June 2, 2026 letter Trump’s lawyers indicated they expected to file that petition “within the next month.” As of this writing, that second petition had not been confirmed filed. In plain terms: the $83.3 million Carroll I verdict remains genuinely unresolved, while the $5 million Carroll II verdict just became final. Combined, with interest, the two cases now expose Trump to more than $100 million — but that combined figure should never be read as a single verdict; it is two separate judgments moving on two separate clocks.

“Today's Supreme Court decision affirms once and for all the jury's unanimous verdict that President Donald J. Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll. His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today's ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions.”

Roberta Kaplan, Carroll's lead attorney, Kaplan Hecker & Fink

With Carroll II final, Carroll’s legal team moved fast. On July 1, attorneys Roberta Kaplan, D. Brandon Trice, and Maximilian T. Crema filed papers before Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in the Southern District of New York, who presided over both Carroll trials — no relation to Carroll’s attorney of the same surname, a coincidence worth flagging plainly so readers don’t confuse the judge with the lawyer. The filing argued: “To date, Carroll has agreed to each of Defendant’s many requests to delay the payment he owes her… that cooperation ends today. It is time for him to pay Carroll.”

Trump did not accept the outcome quietly. On Truth Social the day of the ruling, he wrote — in substance, across posts corroborated by Fox News, The New Republic, ms.now, Forbes, and Time — that “the Supreme Court declined to ‘review’ a Fake Case brought against me by a woman I never met,” that he would “continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case,” and that “this Case is really against the United States of America… and should never be allowed to happen to another President.” A separate campaign statement added that “the American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes.” Carroll, for her part, wrote on her Substack simply: “WE WON!” — framing the outcome as a win “for every woman in the world.”

Keep the two cases straight, because the accountability picture depends on it. Carroll II — the battery and defamation verdict, $5 million plus interest, now roughly $5.8 million — is finished. The Supreme Court’s June 29 order was a discretionary refusal to hear the case, not a finding that Trump committed sexual abuse; but with that refusal, the jury’s civil verdict stands as final and unappealable through the ordinary process, and Carroll’s lawyers are now in court demanding payment. Carroll I — the larger $83.3 million defamation verdict from the original 2019 lawsuit — remains genuinely open: a stay is in place, and Trump’s lawyers have signaled, but not yet filed, a second Supreme Court petition. Both verdicts are civil judgments, decided by juries under civil evidentiary standards, not criminal convictions; Trump denies the underlying conduct in both cases and has not been criminally charged over either. What changed on June 29 and July 1 is narrow but real: one of the two checks against Trump just became legally unavoidable, and the woman he was found liable for abusing is now, in court, asking a federal judge to make him write it.

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Last updated July 1, 2026