FAIRFAX, Va. — The jury in Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s high-profile trial ended their second day of deliberations on Tuesday without a verdict.
The seven-person panel has been mulling the bombshell defamation case in Virginia, Fairfax for a total of nine hours.
Jurors, who are set to return to court on Wednesday at 9 a.m., asked their first question during Tuesday’s deliberations as they weigh whether Heard defamed her ex-husband in a 2018 op-ed.
There was confusion among the jury over the headline of the op-ed, published in the Washington Post, that said, “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath.”
Judge Penney Azcarate said jurors had asked if they were to consider only the headline, or the entire op-ed, when deciding if Heard’s statement was false.
“The statement is the headline and not the entire op-ed,” the judge instructed the jury.
While the article never mentions the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor by name, his attorneys argue he was defamed nonetheless because Heard publicly accused her ex-husband of domestic violence back in 2016 amid their bitter divorce.
In addition to Depp’s $50 million case, the jury are also weighing Heard’s $100 million countersuit in which she alleges her acting career was destroyed after Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, publicly said in 2020 that she fabricated her domestic abuse allegations.
The jury must come to a unanimous decision before delivering their verdict.