'Guardrails of the rule of law': Why federal appeals court upheld Trump/Carroll abuse verdict

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.

He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”

The former requires forcible, unconsented-to penetration with one’s penis. But he said that the conduct the jury effectively found Trump liable for — forced digital penetration — meets a more common definition of rape. He cited definitions offered by the American Psychological Association and the Justice Department, which in 2012 expanded its definition of rape to include penetration “with any body part or object.”

Kaplan also flatly rejected the Trump team’s suggestion that the conduct Trump was found liable for might have been as limited as groping of the breasts.

The reason? Trump was not accused of that, so the only alleged offense that would have qualified as “sexual abuse” was forced digital penetration. Beyond that, Trump was accused of putting his mouth on Carroll’s mouth and pulling down her tights, which Kaplan noted were not treated as alleged sexual abuse at trial.

“The jury’s finding of sexual abuse therefore necessarily implies that it found that Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina,” Kaplan wrote, calling it the “only remaining conclusion.”

Kaplan also noted that the verdict form did not ask the jury to decide exactly what conduct Trump had committed, and that neither prosecutors nor Trump’s lawyers had requested it to do so.

“Mr. Trump’s attempt to minimize the sexual abuse finding as perhaps resting on nothing more than groping of Ms. Carroll’s breasts through her clothing is frivolous,” Kaplan wrote.

He added that the jury clearly found that Trump had “ ‘raped’ her in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.”

In the case E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump, a federal appeals court has upheld a jury's civil verdict holding the president-elect liable for, Carroll alleged, defamation and sexually abusing her. The ruling was handed down on Monday morning, December 30.

Former Elle Magazine columnist Carroll has alleged that during the 1990s, Donald Trump tried to force himself on her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store. Trump has vehemently denied Carroll's accusation, but in May 2023, a jury in her civil defamation lawsuit found him guilty of defamation and agreed she was sexually abused. And Trump's legal team has been fighting the $5 million in damages that jurors awarded her.

The ruling has inspired a lot of reactions on X, formerly Twitter.

MSNBC legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance was quick to weigh in, tweeting, "After inexplicable delay, the 2nd Circuit has affirmed the jury verdict awarding E. Jean Carroll $5 mil in the 1st of her defamation cases to go to trial against Donald Trump. The jury found Trump slandered her when he said she was lying about being sexually abused by him."

Vance added that the opinion "is 79 pages long."

Former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks posted, "Appeals court upholds verdict finding Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. The Courts remain as guardrails of the rule of law. "

Politico's Kyle Cheney noted that the ruling upholds the parts of the civil verdict that Trump has been fighting, including the president-elect being "liable for sexually abusing" Carroll and jurors "ordering him to pay $5 million."

"Trump's request for a new trial is rejected," Cheney tweeted.

Lawfare's Roger Parloff tweeted that according to the December 30 ruling, Trump "failed to prove that Judge Kaplan 'erred in any of the challenged rulings.'"

WMBD Radio observed that "Carroll’s cases are continuing despite Trump’s having won a second four-year White House term on Nov. 5."

The Democratic group Blue Virginia posted, "Good, although the fact that 10s of millions of Americans (including Glenn Youngkin, Jen Kiggans, etc.) simply don't care about this is incredibly depressing."

Journalist Adam Klasfield pointed out that Carroll's allegations had been "affirmed by a federal appeals court."