The sentence of the defamation trial between the actor Johnny Depp and his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, would only be known today. After sessions broadcast live for six weeks, journalists and the public gathered yesterday on the outskirts of Fairfax County, Virginia. The jury made up of seven people had to answer a series of questions and quantify the compensation in two boxes in a written format.
“The words guilty or innocent do not appear in it, since a crime is not judged. But the members of the jury do have to decide if there has been defamation by the actor or the actress,” reported El País, which had access to the format. “If they rule that Heard defamed Depp or that Depp defamed heard, there are in each case two key boxes to fill in: those that set the amount of compensation for damages, with two sections, as is customary in the United States: the so-called compensatory damages and punitive damages; that is, compensation and punishment.”
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As is known, Johnny Depp sued Heard for 50 million dollars for an article he published in 2018 in The Washington Post. Although she did not mention Depp, the actress – whom she countersued for 100 million – says that she was a victim of domestic violence and that she suffered for accusing a former partner. “I spoke out against sexual violence and faced the wrath of our culture.” The text was related to the initial accusations Heard made in her divorce filing in 2016.
For Variety magazine, the jury is also taking into account the turns in Johnny Depp’s career, regardless of the accusation. “He had gotten used to the studios catering to his whims and pandering to him after the huge success of hit movies. Pirates of the Caribbean”. Tracey Jacobs, the agent who helped Depp’s career rise, testified on a recording. “Initially, the teams loved him. He was always great with the team. But teams don’t love sitting around for hours and hours waiting for the star to show up.”
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Depp signed a divorce agreement in which he waived any right to sue his ex-wife over the 2016 allegations. As a result, the actor sued over the op-ed. “The libel trial has grabbed headlines due to the often grotesque and sordid details of the couple’s troubled marriage. But jurors are also being asked to consider whether either of them suffered real harm to his career because of the other’s lies about them,” says Variety.
For all this, It is likely that whoever loses will request the annulment of the trial, as El País points out. “There are lawyers who even point out that Fairfax’s jurisdiction was not so obvious, given that they are both domiciled in California and that whoever loses can try not only to use the ruling to improve their position.”
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