The combination of these two separate photos shows actors Johnny Depp, left, and Amber Heard in the courtroom to conclude arguments at the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Fairfax, Va.
Steve Helber / AP
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Steve Helber / AP
The combination of these two separate photos shows actors Johnny Depp, left, and Amber Heard in the courtroom to conclude arguments at the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Fairfax, Va.
Steve Helber / AP
After a six-week trial in which Johnny Depp and Amber Heard tore each other over the grisly details of their brief marriage, both sides told the jury the same thing on Friday. – they want their life back.
Heard “ruined his life by lying to the world that she was a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of Mr. Depp,” Depp’s attorney Camille Vasquez told the jury at the conclusion. ended the argument in his ex-wife defamation trial.
Meanwhile, Heard’s attorney said Depp ruined Heard’s life by launching a smear campaign against her when she divorced him and publicly accused him of assault in 2016.
“In Mr. Depp’s world, you can’t leave Mr. Depp,” said Heard’s attorney, J. Benjamin Rottenborn. “If you do, he will start a global campaign of humiliation against you.”
Depp hopes the trial will help restore his reputation, even though it has turned into a spectacle of a bad marriage, with broadcast cameras in the courtroom capturing every movement of the audience. became more enthralling as fans took to social media and queued overnight coveting courtroom seats.
“This case against Mr. Depp has never been about money,” said Depp’s attorney Benjamin Chew. “It’s about Mr. Depp’s reputation and freeing him from the prison he’s lived in for the past six years.”
Depp is suing Heard for $50 million in Fairfax County Court of Virginia in a 2018 filing she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a figurehead for domestic abuse.” .” His lawyers say he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned him by name.
Heard filed a $100 million lawsuit against the former “Pirates of the Caribbean” star after his attorney called her allegations a hoax. Although the counterclaim received less attention at trial, Heard’s attorney Elaine Bredehoft said it provided an opportunity for the jury to compensate Heard for the abuse Depp inflicted on her even after the trial. when they split by staging a smear campaign.
“We ask that you ultimately hold this man accountable,” she told the jury. “He’s never taken responsibility for anything in his life.”
The seven-person civil jury began deliberations at 3 p.m. Friday and ended the day about two hours later. They will resume on Tuesday.
Depp said he never hit Heard and that she fabricated abuse allegations. He has stated that he is the one who was physically attacked by Heard multiple times.
“There’s an abuser in this courtroom, but it’s not Mr. Depp,” Vasquez said.
During the trial, Heard testified about more than a dozen physical and sexual assaults she said Depp inflicted on her.
Vasquez, in her epilogue, notes that Heard had to amend her testimony about the first time she said she had been beaten. Heard said Depp hit her after she accidentally laughed at one of his tattoos. Heard initially said it happened in 2013 – after a fairy tale year of courtship and romance – but later rectified that it happened in 2012, very early in their relationship.
“Now in this courtroom, she suddenly erases an entire year of magic,” Vasquez said.
Jurors saw many photos of Heard with marks and bruises on her face, but some showed only mild redness and others showed more severe bruising.
Vasquez accused Heard of conducting the photos and said that evidence that Heard edited some of her injuries is proof that all of her abuse claims are baseless.
“You can believe it all, or not believe it,” she said. “Either she’s the victim of ugly, horrible abuse, or she’s a woman willing to say absolutely anything.”
In Heard’s epilogue, Rottenborn said that criticizing Heard’s evidence of abuse ignored the fact that there was a lot of evidence on her behalf and sent a dangerous message to domestic violence victims.
“If you hadn’t taken the picture, it wouldn’t have happened,” says Rottenborn. “If you take pictures, they’re fake. If you don’t tell your friends, they’re lying. If you’ve told your friends, they’re part of a hoax.”
And he rejected Vasquez’s suggestion that if the jury thought Heard might be fabricating a single act of abuse, they would have to ignore everything she said. He said Depp’s defamation claim would not succeed if Heard was abused even once.
“They’re trying to trick you into thinking Amber has to be perfect to win,” Rottenborn said.
As the jury deliberates, it will focus not only on whether there was abuse, but also on whether Heard’s op-ed work could be considered lawfully defamatory. The article itself mainly focused on policy questions about domestic violence, but Depp’s attorney pointed to two passages in the article, as well as an online headline they said defamed Depp.
In the first paragraph, Heard writes that “two years ago, I became a public figure for domestic abuse, and I feel the full force of outrage in our culture. .” Depp’s lawyers called it a clear reference to Depp, since Heard publicly accused Depp of domestic violence in 2016 – two years before she wrote the article.
In the second paragraph, she said, “I had the rare advantage of seeing, in real time, how organizations protect men accused of abuse.”
Online headlines read “Amber Heard: I spoke out against sexual violence – and faced the outrage of our culture.”
“She didn’t mention his name. She didn’t have to,” said Chew. “Everybody knows exactly who and what Miss Heard is talking about.”
Heard’s attorneys said Heard cannot be held responsible for the title because she didn’t write it, and that the two paragraphs in the article are not about the abuse allegations themselves but how Heard’s life changed. after she shows them.
Rottenborn told jurors that even if they were inclined to believe Depp’s claim that he never abused Heard, he still couldn’t win the case because Heard had First Amendment rights to consider. publicly debated issues.
