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Amber Heard has reportedly filed an appeal for a new trial against her former husband Johnny Depp and the verdict of the infamous Virginia defamation trial that ruled the latter as a winner.
The actress and her new team reportedly claimed that the trial was held in the wrong state and alleged that the verdict was unfair. Heard also accused Judge Penney Azcarate of excluding certain evidence as hearsay, including therapy notes in which she documented her alleged abuse.
In July 2022, a US jury ruled that Heard defamed her husband Depp in a 2018 Washington Post article where she claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse.
The former was asked to pay Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The latter was reduced to $350,000, the maximum amount for punitive damages as per Virginia law.
Heard was awarded $2 million for winning a claim against Depp involving some controversial media statements provided by his former lawyer Adam Waldman.
Following the ruling, Amber Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft announced that the actress was “broke” due to the mounting legal fees and would not be able to pay $10 million to Depp.
However, Heard reportedly fired Bredehoft in August and hired lawyers David L. Axelrod and Jay Ward Brown of Ballard Spahr to lead her legal team. The Aquaman star’s latest filing left netizens surprised, sparking curiosity about how she could afford a new lawyer despite claims of financial struggle.
Amber Heard’s latest filing comes after Johnny Depp filed his own formal appeal, claiming that the single count of defamation the former won in the Virginia trial was “erroneous” in nature.
Twitter reacts to Amber Heard’s new appeal against Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s highly-publicized defamation trial came to an end on June 1, 2022, with the former winning the long legal battle.
However, the ex-couple continued to make news and remained under intense scrutiny on social media. More recently, Heard filed a new appeal in court to reverse the jury verdict or arrange for an entirely new trial.
As the filing came to light, several social media users took to Twitter to react to Heard’s appeal.
While several users called out Amber Heard for her latest appeal, some of her loyal fans came to her rescue.
Johnny Depp first sued Amber Heard for $50 million in 2019. He accused her of defamation for publishing a 2018 op-ed in the Washington Post portraying herself as a survivor of domestic abuse.
In the suit, Depp claimed he was the victim of abuse during their time as a couple. Heard countersued the former for $100 million, claiming that the actor assaulted her on multiple occasions during their marriage.
Following six weeks of hearings and dramatic deliberations, a Fairfax County court jury declared Depp the winner. The court ordered Amber Heard to pay him a final amount of $10.35 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
A look into Amber Heard’s latest legal filing against Johnny Depp
Nearly five months after the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial came to an end, the latter recently filed an appeal against Depp and the verdict of the Virginia trial claiming that the ruling was unfair.
In a November 23 filing, Heard’s new lawyers claimed that the Fairfax County court “improperly prevented” the jury from accessing medical reports that allegedly documented Heard’s reports of abuse. They claimed that the trial court prevented the jury from taking a look at a number of instances where Heard had reported Depp's abuse to a medical professional.
They added that if the June verdict is not reversed, it would make it difficult for several other victims to prove abuse allegations against their perpetrators. They said:
“If not reversed, the trial court’s exclusion of contemporaneous reports of domestic abuse to medical professionals will make it more difficult for other abuse victims to prove allegations of abuse, and likely deter them from coming forward.”
They also claimed that Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard should have taken place in California, where the exes lived together and not in Virginia due to the location of the Washington Post’s servers:
“The trial court erroneously refused to dismiss this action on the ground of forum non conveniens, based on its mistaken conclusion that Depp’s claims arose in Virginia because the Washington Post’s servers are located here.”
The filing mentioned that Virginia was an “entirely inconvenient forum with no connection to Depp or any meaningful connection to his claims.”
Amber Heard’s lawyers also claimed that the trial court also made a mistake by overruling the former’s arguments about the challenged statements.
“The trial court also erred in overruling Heard’s demurrer, in which she argued that the challenged statements are non-actionable expressions of opinion and are not reasonably capable of conveying the alleged defamatory implication.”
Furthermore, the attorneys claimed that the case should not have gone to trial, as Depp had already lost a similar lawsuit in the UK when he sued The Sun for calling him a “wife-beater” in one of their past stories about the actor:
“This case also should never have gone to trial because another court had already concluded that Depp abused Heard on multiple occasions. After Depp filed this case, the United Kingdom High Court of Justice ruled in a separate defamation action brought by Depp that Heard’s abuse allegations were true.”
The lawyers also accused Judge Penny Azcarate of improperly instructing the seven-body Fairfax County court and for allegedly “excluding highly probative evidence and by admitting irrelevant and prejudicial evidence.”
They went on to reiterate that if the holding is allowed to stand, it will have a “chilling effect” on other women who wish to speak against abuse caused to them by powerful men. The 68-page filing further stated:
“The trial court should have given preclusive effect to that 129-page decision, which followed a three-week trial at which Depp, Heard, and 24 other witnesses testified.”
It also mentioned that the jury's verdict against Heard was in favor of all of Depp’s claims “cannot be reconciled” with the jury ruling against Depp on Heard’s counterclaim. The document argued:
“To find in favor of Depp, the jury must have concluded that Depp did not abuse Heard and that Heard knowingly lied in accusing him of abuse. But, to find in favor of Heard, the jury must have concluded that Heard told the truth about being a victim of domestic abuse by Depp. Accordingly, the verdict against Heard cannot stand.”
According to Virginia law, the merits of both Amber Heard and Johnny Depp’s latest appeals will be decided by a group of judges. The former pair can also take the matter to the Commonwealth’s Supreme Court depending on the final results.
