Johnny Depp Responds To Amber Heard’s Mistrial Request

Johnny Depp Responds To Amber Heard’s Mistrial Request

Johnny Depp has responded to Amber Heard’s request for a mistrial after a jury ordered her to pay the Pirates of the Caribbean star more than $10 million in damages in his defamation case earlier this year. Needless to say, he’s not a fan of the motion and believes the ruling should stay as-is.

  1. Heard requested a retrial or, better yet, a mistrial. Not only does Heard believe that the result of the case was completely unfair, but according to her lawyer Elaine Bredehoft, there’s even a question as to whether one of the jurors was even who he said he was since he lied about his age in official court documents. Her team believes these “newly discovered facts” warrant invalidating the previous verdict.
  2. Depp wants the motion for a mistrial to be struck down. According to E! News, Depp’s legal team claims that Heard has no basis for her request and is only protesting the outcome because it didn’t go her way. They say that Heard “had more than enough time” to investigate the jurors and that the person who ended up serving on the jury when another had been summoned was “still qualified to serve as a juror.”
  3. The actor’s team also thinks the motion came too little, too late. Heard’s request for a mistrial was filed on July 8, which was a full week after the court-appointed deadline to dispute the verdict. Depp’s official response read: “Though understandably displeased with the outcome of trial, Ms. Heard has identified no legitimate basis to set aside in any respect the jury’s decision. Mr. Depp respectfully submits that the Court should deny Ms. Heard’s Post-Trial Motions, which verge into the frivolous.”
  4. Heard previously appealed the verdict on a technicality. In that filing, she claimed that one of the three statements said to be defamatory against Depp wasn’t even written by her. She believes that since she didn’t write the headline in contention, she shouldn’t be held responsible for it. However, Depp’s team argued that since she retweeted a link to the story that displayed the headline, that counts as “actionable publication.”
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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