Amber Heard has been denied a mistrial in Johnny Depp defamation case
Heard filed for a mistrial after attorneys discovered that one of the jurors was not who he said he was
Aux News Unknown
Johnny Depp’s $10 million defamation trial victory will stay for the time being. Earlier today, a judge denied Depp’s ex-wife Amber Heard’s petition for a retrial after discovering that one of the sitting jurors was not called for duty, per The Guardian.
Heard filed for a mistrial earlier this month, with her lawyers citing a case of mistaken identity regarding one juror. Court records show that a 77-year-old Fairfax County resident was called for jury duty. His 52-year-old son came in his stead.
Heard’s lawyers argued that Virginia law has strict rules against mistaken identity, making it grounds for a mistrial. While her attorneys did not say that Juror 15, as court records refer to the man, took his father’s identity purposely or with malicious intent, they could not discount the possibility.
“The court cannot assume, as Mr Depp asks it to, that Juror 15’s apparently improper service was an innocent mistake. It could have been an intentional attempt to serve on the jury of a high-profile case,” Heard’s lawyers argued.
Judge Penney Azcarate disagreed, stating that the juror performed their duties as required by law. “The juror was vetted, sat for the entire jury, deliberated, and reached a verdict,” Azcarate wrote. “The only evidence before this court is that this juror and all jurors followed their oaths, the court’s instructions, and orders. This court is bound by the competent decision of the jury.”
Depp’s lawsuit against Heard was over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed about domestic violence in which Heard referred to herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” While Heard did not mention Depp by name, he claims that the editorial destroyed his career—as did the defamation case he lost in the U.K. after he sued The Sun for calling him a “wife beater.”
As a result of the trial, Heard became the subject of intense public scrutiny, particularly online, where her abuse claims were mocked, belittled, and regularly dismissed in favor of Depp’s constant mugging for the courtroom cameras. Many noted the disastrous effect such a decision will have on abuse victims looking to speak out against their abusers. Others noted that this was a case of “mutual abuse,” where one person receives sympathy and the other is the subject of a social media campaign to label them a liar.
Heard will still have a chance to appeal the decision in the Virginia court of appeals.
41 Comments
I’m just a TV lawyer, but that seems like a big deal.Could the guy really not have ever noticed the birthday, and known it was supposed to be his dad?Cheating your way onto a jury should mean a mistrial. IMO. Otherwise, why not cheat your way into a jury to see celebrities, if that’s something you want?
They don’t put your date of birth on Jury Summons.
I think I got one a couple weeks ago*, but I haven’t opened it yet. I’ll have to check.
*Hypothetically.
They literally do, it’s tied to your driver’s license and home address, there’s no way this guy made a mistake, he’s the juror Depp’s guy bragged about buying. Wonder how much it cost to commit verifiable fraud.
If you read the court filing, the man didn’t show up specifically to be on this jury. A man with the same last name from the same address showed up to jury duty with a summons, seemingly having mistaken his father’s for his own (I assume, they must also have the same first name). Heard’s people conceded they don’t believe it was malicious.He was not dismissed that day, but his incorrect birth year showed on documents furnished to the lawyers before jury selection. So essentially her people are saying they chose him because of his age and wouldn’t have if they had noticed. But Amber Heard has since stated publicly, that it was clear to look at Juror 15 on April 11 that he was not born in 1945. This means that they missed their chance to contest the juror because they seemingly were aware of the situation.The court is basically saying that while the man may not have been initially summoned, there is nothing to say that he didn’t follow the rules of being on a jury and if there was concern and the defendant was aware of the concern at the start of the trial, they should have requested an alternate be sat.
My brother has the same name (even middle name) as my father and constantly gets confused for him in lots of bureaucratic paperwork. It doesn’t help that he still lives in our hometown where our parents live. Not saying that it *couldn’t* be nefarious dishonesty on the part of the juror, but I know that honest mistakes like this really do happen. Basically, don’t name your kids after yourself. Just don’t.
It’s also why both sets of lawyers had time to review the jurors and the pre-trial jury list. If anything, this seems like another instance of her team not fully doing their due diligence.
Yahtzee!
I agree, there are two massive holes in Heard’s lawyers’ argument. First, they didn’t move to disqualify the juror during selection. Second, jurors have no idea what trial they are going to be assigned to beforehand. The whole motion was grasping at straws.
It’s also a bad idea to to say in public that “you just had to look at the juror to know that they weren’t born in 1945…” because then the question is why didn’t you get up and say something then?
Yeah, they’re admitting their own mistakes. I guess the next thing to happen is for Heard to fire them and ask for new trial because her lawyers were incompetent. I don’t think that one’s going to fly either.
And in Virginia court law, once they go through voir dire, a mistaken juror is absolutely not grounds for a mistrial.
If they had gone through voir dire with the father and then the son showed up to court, I would understand it a bit more (and I think that’s how they’ve been publicly making it sound), but it seems like the mistaken juror was the only one ever present. Not a weird bait and switch.
Right, the father never showed up so it became moot. If both showed up at some point, then yeah it’d be weird. They went through the whole process of vetting and choosing which jurors should sit, so it’s extremely bad faith by Heard and her team to say it should be a mistrial due to mistaken juror. They had their chance to strike the juror and they blew it.
Agreed.From a PR standpoint, they do seem to be putting it out there as more egregious and nefarious thing. I get why, but I don’t think it’s the best long-term move.
Read the court filing through better written articles. It was just an honest mistake of a screw up that the court failed to act on. There’s no evidence to suggest he cheated or acted maliciously. And even her attorneys admit to that.
There’s no evidence to suggest he cheated or acted maliciously. And even her attorneys admit to that.They didn’t want another defamation suit.
You’re a fucking thundercuntttttttttttttttttt
That’s not how jury duty works.You don’t get told what case you’ll be on, or even if you’ll be on a case at all until you show up.
This is getting close to Fox News finding evidence of “voter tampering”. Which is, y’know, it’s not.
Theres always TmZ. They seem to know the scoop. Better still, the ACLU. They’re the real experts that should be heralded for their work. Makes me so proud. *tears up*. Objection heresay
Pretty sure my air fryer is a Mistral.
You can pick one up pretty easily at any Woolworths, Big W or Bunnings.
I feel I’m the only bastard in Aus without one of those things.
I… actually don’t have one. I just wanted to fit in sooo bad.
I am so ashame. *goes and stands in corner*
Just grab one from the thousands that’ll be on kerbside cleanup when they inevitably fall out of vogue in the next six months. These things ain’t Thermomixes. They’re like $80.
Six months?!
But don’t we all want to be fashion? Otherwise why have friends. :O
Look, until then you’ll have to get your Chiko rolls from the corner shop like the rest of us.
You goddamn fucking useless sack of shit!!!!!
Try Walmart next to TJ Maxx. Amber can show ya
“My dad stepped on a bee, so I came to jury duty in his place.”
I will never get why people find this so funny
Humor is such a subjective thing.
You guys are just going to keep trying to make fetch happen by portraying Heard as the patron saint of #metoo no matter how much evidence that she’s a manipulative abuser comes out, aren’t you?Man, I thought retrumplicans were in denial about the election.
They’re both manipulative abusers. He had the better legal team.
Anyone who considered her the patron saint of #metoo probably never actually looked into the situation in the first place.
Now that people are actually looking at his relationship history (both social and romantic), he’s looking worse despite the legal win in a defamation case.
Yep. Try searching Google for help as a man vs how a woman gets it and see just how skewed the REAL bias is
A Venn diagram of the Twitter lawyers who claimed that this verdict was doomed and that Gawker was going to successfully appeal theirs seems to be, as the kids say, a circle.
The hubris of American dads naming their sons after themselves is strange to me. This is just one reason why that’s a stupid idea.
Something is wrong with Kinja. I keep clicking on “AV Club”, but it keeps sending me to “Jezebel”.
Just switch back to your incel Reddit tab until it’s fixed.
Just looked up “incel” and it literally sounds like a gender-swapped version of a stereotypical Jezebel member.
Let’s give the liar another chance to hang herself. Depp didn’t ruin her credibility, her perjury did that. The only tragedy to result out of all this is that the woman will still be a self branded bias fueled victim struggling to have her voice heard against the unfair gender hating bad guys. She still wins as long as we forget he was abused too.