Can Amber Heard Expect a New Trial of Johnny Depp?

This is a case that will likely be talked about for a long time to come. While Johnny Depp refuses to pay the two million dollars in damages that he owes to Amber Heard, the actress’s lawyers have appealed, as they announced last July, the sentence issued on June 1, 2022.

This defamation lawsuit had given rise to a wave of online harassment and highly biased media treatment of Amber Heard. If we still don’t know the outcome of this request, it is clear that the risk of seeing the same hostility manifest itself again is real. In mid-November, a forum signed by 130 personalities and associations denounced the violence and denigration of the 36-year-old actress.

Reasoned appeal by defenders of Amber Heard

The appeal brings several arguments to challenge the verdict of Judge Penney Azcarate, starting with the choice of the venue of the trial, the State of Virginia: “Instead of suing Heard in California, where both parties live and where Depp claims he has suffered reputational damage, Depp attacked in Virginia, a wholly inappropriate forum that has no connection to Depp or anything to do with his complaints. » The announcement recalls that this choice was justified by the presence of the servers Washington Post in this state. This is the media outlet that published Amber Heard’s letter in late 2018, which testified to the domestic violence she experienced.

The sixty-page document also highlights the fact that the disputed statements by Johnny Depp “are expressions of opinion that are not actionable and not reasonably capable of communicating an alleged defamatory implication. »

Another element in support of Amber Heard’s appeal is the fact that the British justice has already ruled on the case of Johnny Depp in November 2020: the actor had lost his legal battle against the Sun who called him “let’s beat them” (in other words, of a man who beats his wife), the judge stating in his deliberations that there was sufficient evidence to prove that he had indeed committed violence to Amber Heard.

Overturning the verdict or obtaining a new trial, these are the possible outcomes of this appeal filed by Amber Heard:

“To find in Depp’s favor, the jury must have found that Depp did not abuse Heard and that Heard knowingly lied by accusing him of abuse. But, to rule in Heard’s favor, the jury must have found that Heard was telling the truth that he was a victim of domestic abuse committed by Depp. Consequently, the verdict against Heard cannot stand. »

Johnny Depp also started the same process. Each of the two files will have to be examined before a panel of judges.

Photo credit: NBC (Capture)