The actor Johnny Depp couldn’t persuade a choose in London that he was harmless of that he had abused his former spouse, the actress Amber Heard, however in a trial beginning Monday, the actor will take his defamation criticism to a jury in Virginia.
The US trial facilities on a lawsuit Mr. Depp filed towards Ms. Heard, who wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in 2018, after the couple divorced, saying she had develop into a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”
The piece didn’t point out Mr. Depp by title, however the actor has asserted in court docket papers that it clearly referred to their relationship, and that his popularity and profession have been “devastated” because of this.
During three years of authorized sparring in Virginia, Mr. Depp, 58, and Ms. Heard, 35, have shared pages of lurid particulars from their various accounts of their marriage. Ms. Heard’s descriptions of “volatile and violent” episodes with Mr. Depp all through their relationship included his slapping her, head-butting her, throwing her to the bottom, and pulling out clumps of her hair, in line with court docket papers.
In his lawsuit, filed in March 2019, Mr. Depp denied that he was a home abuser and mentioned Ms. Heard’s allegations have been an “elaborate hoax” supposed to spice up her public persona — one which succeeded in making her a “darling of the #MeToo movement.” Mr. Depp has mentioned Ms. Heard had been the perpetrator of abuse, accusing her in court docket papers of punching, kicking him and throwing objects, together with a vodka bottle that he mentioned shattered on the countertop and severed the tip of considered one of his fingers.
“Mr. Depp brings this defamation action to clear his name,” the actor’s lawsuit mentioned.
Ms. Heard mentioned in court docket papers that she has by no means attacked Mr. Depp besides in self-defense or in protection of her youthful sister, and that Mr. Depp severed the tip of his finger when he smashed a telephone towards the wall throughout a violent outburst. “I have never physically abused anyone,” she wrote. “I know what that does to people.”
The trial in Fairfax County Circuit Court is anticipated to final about six weeks and can start with jury choice. The proceedings will likely be televised, all however guaranteeing that they’ll develop into a public spectacle. Both events are anticipated to testify. In addition, Ms. Heard’s checklist of potential witnesses contains a number of celebrities — amongst them Elon Musk and James Franco — and the proof the 2 sides intend to place ahead contains textual content messages between the couple, medical information and surveillance footage from Los Angeles, the place they lived collectively.
(Ms. Heard exchanged texts with Mr. Musk about her marriage that have been used as proof within the British case, and he or she mentioned in that trial that Mr. Franco noticed the bruises on her face after an altercation that’s in dispute.)
There are additionally weighty authorized questions in play as jurors will likely be requested to evaluate, not solely Mr. Depp’s declare, but additionally points raised in a countersuit Ms. Heard filed in 2020. It accused Mr. Depp of defaming her by way of his former lawyer, who gave statements to the media saying that Ms. Heard’s abuse claims have been a hoax.
The trial is among the most excessive profile examples of defamation instances which have arisen from the #MeToo period, and legal professionals across the nation are following it intently.
Jamie R. Abrams, a regulation professor on the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law who has written about these instances, mentioned that is considered one of a quantity wherein the litigation finally turns into a trial over the reality of what occurred, as legal professionals on each side search to show that their shopper couldn’t have dedicated defamation in the event that they have been talking actually.
“I think legislators, litigators, and scholars are all watching this case and its parallels to see where the law settles after such a period of turbulence,” she mentioned.
Another key query is how the British trial will think about. A choose in London present in 2020 that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Mr. Depp had assaulted Ms. Heard repeatedly throughout their marriage, writing that Mr. Depp had put the actress “in fear of her life.”
Lawyers for Ms. Heard sought to persuade the choose in Virginia to embrace his British counterpart’s findings, arguing that the difficulty on the core of each instances was the identical: whether or not Mr. Depp had abused Ms. Head. Judge Penney S. Azcarate declined to take action, writing in her resolution that Ms. Heard was not the defendant within the British case — it was a British newspaper that referred to as Mr. Depp a “wife beater” — and Mr. Depp didn’t have entry to a jury trial there.
Judges usually exclude earlier trials akin to this one from the proof a jury is allowed to think about and even prohibit point out of such background so the jury is not going to be unfairly swayed, Lee Berlik, a defamation lawyer in Virginia, mentioned. But Ms. Heard’s legal professionals can argue that facets of it are related to her case and due to this fact ought to be shared with the jury.
“Naturally, Amber Heard is going to want to do everything she can to make the jury aware of that because Johnny Depp lost,” Mr. Berlik mentioned, referring to the London libel case. “Conversely, Johnny Depp will want to do everything he can to make sure it is not mentioned.”
Lawyers for Mr. Depp and Ms. Heard declined to touch upon the specifics of how the British case could be dealt with on the American trial.
The former couple met when Ms. Heard was solid as Mr. Depp’s love curiosity within the 2011 movie “The Rum Diary” and have been married in 2015. The subsequent yr, a court docket in California granted Ms. Heard a brief home violence restraining order towards Mr. Depp after she alleged “emotional, verbal and physical abuse” in a petition to the court docket, detailing a latest incident wherein she mentioned Mr. Depp violently shoved her to the ground and threw a champagne bottle on the wall after her thirtieth birthday celebration, and one other wherein she mentioned he threw a cellphone at her, hitting her within the face.
In court docket papers, Mr. Depp has denied Ms. Heard’s model of occasions, saying she punched him within the face repeatedly after he was late for her birthday dinner and accusing her of faking a bruise on her face to acquire the restraining order, which she finally withdrew. (Ms. Heard dismissed her petition for a long run restraining order as a part of their divorce settlement, her legal professionals wrote in court docket papers.)
After the couple divorced, The Washington Post printed Ms. Heard’s op-ed, however the newspaper has not been named as a defendant within the case. Online, the op-ed was titled, “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath.”
“A movie I was attached to recast my role,” the op-ed learn. “I had simply shot a two-year marketing campaign because the face of a worldwide vogue model, and the corporate dropped me. Questions arose as as to whether I’d have the ability to preserve my position of Mera within the films ‘Justice League’ and ‘Aquaman.'”
Though it catalogs the harm she mentioned she suffered by going public, the herop-ed didn’t element herop of the abuse she says she suffered by the hands of Mr. Depp.
The op-ed recognized Ms. Heard as an envoy on girls’s rights on the American Civil Liberties Union, and he or she mentioned in court docket papers that the ACLU — whose govt director, Anthony Romero, can be listed as a possible witness within the trial — recommended that Ms. Heard write the piece and submitted it to the newspaper.
Mr. Depp claims within the lawsuit that after the op-ed was printed, the harm to his profession and popularity was “swift and severe.” Days after, Disney confirmed that Mr. Depp wouldn’t be returning to considered one of his most outstanding movie roles as Captain Jack Sparrow in a potential “Pirates of the Caribbean” reboot, in line with his lawsuit.
“He was denied an opportunity to reprise that role immediately on the heels of Ms. Heard’s false and defamatory op-ed,” the lawsuit mentioned.
,
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
