The highly publicized defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is finally reaching its end after six weeks in court. The jury began deliberations on Friday afternoon, according to The Independent.
Depp, 58, is suing Heard, 36, for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she wrote where she alluded that Depp abused her, although his name doesn’t appear in the article, as I reported previously for the Deseret News.
Heard filed a $100 million countersuit against Depp in the summer of 2020.
When will there be a verdict?
According to NBC News, if a unanimous decision isn’t made by the end of Friday, the seven-person jury will not come back until Tuesday due to Memorial Day weekend.
Here is the jury form they will be filling out to come to their decision.
If Depp wins the case, he will be paid $50 million in damages, although the jury can recommend more or less than the amount Heard is being sued for. If Heard wins, she will not have to pay anything in damages. Since she is countersuing Depp, she can win damages of her own depending on whether she wins that case.
What happened during the closing arguments of the Depp-Heard trial?
After six weeks of testimony from Depp, Heard and other witnesses to their relationship, the former couple’s attorneys presented closing arguments in a Virginia courtroom.
Depp’s attorney, Camille Vasquez, told the jury that Heard should be held accountable because her client isn’t an abuser.
- “Today, on May 27, 2022, exactly six years later we ask you to give Mr. Depp his life back by telling the world that Mr. Depp is not the abuser Ms. Heard said he is and hold Ms. Heard accountable for her lies,” Vasquez said, per E News. “What is at stake in this trial is a man’s good name. Even more, what is at stake at this trial is a man’s life, the life that he lost when he was accused of a heinous crime.”
- “There is an abuser in this courtroom, but it is not Mr. Depp,” Vasquez said, per USA Today. “And there is a victim of domestic abuse in this courtroom, but it is not Ms. Heard.”
Heard’s lawyer, J. Benjamin Rottenborn, defended Heard’s first amendment rights.
- “Does the First Amendment give Ms. Heard the right to write the words she wrote in this article on Dec. 18, 2018?” Rottenborn asked rhetorically. “Should someone be able to write an article like that in the United States of America without going through Hell?” he said, per Deadline.
- “In Mr. Depp’s world, you don’t leave Mr. Depp,” said Rottenborn. “If you do, he will start a campaign of global humiliation against you.”
- “They are trying to trick you to believe that Amber has to be perfect to win. Actually, if he fails to prove he didn’t abuse Amber one time, she wins,” he said, per Deadline.