Heard’s lawyers requested a Virginia judge to declare a mistrial.
Although we thought we heard the last of Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, the actress filed an appeal. After losing the trial where Depp won $15 million in damages, Heard was looking to re-open the case.
The lawsuit stems from Heard’s Washington Post op-ed identifying herself as a domestic abuse survivor from her relationship with Depp. Although she did not explicitly name him in the piece, it was speculated that the 59-year-old was Heard’s offender.
Her lawyers asked Judge Penney Azcarate to hold Depp’s award and declare a mistrial. However, on Wednesday, she denied the request.
Series of events
“There is no evidence of fraud or wrongdoing,” Azcarate said, and the juror “met the statutory requirements for service.”
The highly publicized trial ran from April 22, 2022, to June 1, 2022, and dominated headlines from events inside and outside the courtroom. Inside, Depp’s former girlfriend, supermodel Kate Moss (virtually), defended him at the stand. Meanwhile, many of his loyal fans gathered outside the Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia—while international supporters spent up to $30,000 to travel to America.
Online, fans trended the hashtag #ThankYouDior for keeping the Academy Award nominee as an endorser despite allegations. It wasn’t only a win for Depp, but his now-famous legal team. After the court’s ruling, his defamation litigator Camille Vasquez was promoted to partner of law firm Brown Rudnick.
Moving forward
On June 18, two weeks after the trial, Heard sat down with Savannah Guthrie of NBC News to assert her claims, regardless of the loss. “[My doctor’s] notes represented years—years—of real-time explanations of what was going on,” the 36-year-old stated. In January 2012, Heard told her therapist Depp “hit her” and “threw her on the floor.”
A year later, the notes read that Depp “threw her against a wall and threatened to kill her.” However, the judge ruled the notes “hearsay and inadmissible.”
In response to the interview, Depp’s team said: “It’s unfortunate that while Johnny is looking to move forward with his life, the defendant and her team are back to repeating, reimagining, and re-litigating matters that have already been decided by the court and a verdict that was unequivocally decided by a jury in Johnny’s favor.”
Banner photo by Robert Linder on Unsplash.
