Jury comes back with question in Johnny Depp, Amber Heard trial
FAIRFAX, Va. — The jurors in Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s bombshell defamation trial came back with a question Tuesday as they continued deliberations in the high-profile case.
The seven-person panel was confused about one of eight questions it needs to answer as it determines whether Heard defamed her ex-husband when she wrote a Washington Post op-ed in 2018 describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.”
The question was whether they found the headline of the op-ed — which read, “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath” — to be false.
Judge Penney Azcarate told the Fairfax, Virginia, court just before 2 p.m. that the jury was asking if the question related to just the headline itself or the entire op-ed.
She said she would instruct the jurors that they were to consider the headline — and not the op-ed as a whole.
“The statement is the headline and not the entire op-ed,” the judge said.
In addition to the headline, jurors have been asked to consider whether two phrases within Heard’s op-ed defamed the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star.
In the first passage of her op-ed, Heard wrote that “two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath.”
In the second passage, the “Aquaman” actress wrote, “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.”
According to the verdict form given to jurors, the jury has to consider whether the headline and passages were about Depp, if they are false, whether each of them has a “defamatory implication” and whether Heard intended for it to smear her ex-husband.
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Jurors also have to weigh if Heard acted with “actual malice,” which requires “clear and convincing evidence” that she either knew what she was writing was false or that she acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
The jury must come to a unanimous decision for a verdict in Depp’s $50 million case.
Texas civil lawyer Katherine Lizardo said it was “too early to infer” which way the jury was leaning, but the question appeared to be advantageous towards Depp’s case.
Texas civil lawyer Katherine Lizardo said it was “too early to infer” which way the jury was leaning, but the question appeared to be advantageous towards Depp’s case.
“If they deem he did not [sexually abuse her] then that statement is defamatory, according to the special verdict form.”
Halim Dhanidina, a former California judge and current criminal defense attorney, told The Post that the question from the jury showed they were honing in on “specific elements of defamation.”
“You never want to predict where a jury is leaning based on a question but it at least appears that they are focused on the appropriate legal issues, which may benefit one side more than the other,” Dhanidina said. “But it at least gives you faith that the jury is trying to do the right thing here.”
He added, “There is an old adage that trying to interpret juror questions is a little like reading tea leaves. You don’t know if it’s a question that all jurors have, that only one juror has, or if it’s just something that they want to make sure of before they move on to the next question.
“You can’t really tell where the jury is just by looking at the question. What you do know is that at least one juror appears to be focused on the specific elements of defamation, which is completely appropriate in this case.”
