The document was filed in the state of Virginia and requires a retrial after finding defects in the process.
Amber Heard’s legal team filed a motion to overturn the verdict ordering her to pay $ 8.35 million for defamation to her ex-husband Johnny Depp. The document was filed Friday 1 in the state of Virginia and requires a retrial after finding several defects in the process.
The application for annulment has emerged as a better solution than a simple appeal. Initially, Judge Penney Azcarate created restrictive conditions for an appeal, requiring as a condition the full amount of damages that Depp had won as bail.
With the discovery of a procedural flaw, Heard found a way to ask for a retrial without having to pay that amount.
The most serious fact highlighted in the text is that one of the jurors would have grossly lied about his age, questioning his identity and, with it, the adequacy of the sentence in the case.
Heard’s attorneys argue that juror 15 may have been illegally selected by providing the wrong date of birth during jury selection – they claimed it was 1945 rather than the year 1970.
“This discrepancy raises the question of whether Juror 15 actually received a subpoena to serve as a juror and whether he was properly reviewed by the court to serve on the jury,” reads the lawyers’ motion. “Depending on the results of the investigation, this could justify overturning the verdict in its entirety and setting the matter up for a retrial,” adds the text.
To date, it is not known whether the juror actually deliberated on the case.
The document filed by Heard’s team is 43 pages long and also claims that the evidence presented by Depp to discredit Heard does not hold up.
The motion states that Depp “proceeded solely on the basis of a theory of implied defamation, abandoning any claims that Heard’s statements were indeed false.” Also, remember that Depp lost a previous trial in the UK, where the judge in the case found it correct to call him a “wife beater”, which would reinforce the absurdity of the American jurors’ decision, who did not even consider the fact that Depp had already legally been a domestic assailant.
“The two verdicts are inconsistent and irreconcilable,” says the text, which also warns of the difference in the jury’s treatment of damages owed by Heard and Depp. The plaintiff was also convicted of defamation in the same trial, but the amount he would have had to pay his ex-wife is far less than what he was charged.
“The defamation damages against Ms. Heard with a $ 2 million award are not consistent with the defamation damages against Mr. Depp with a $ 15 million award,” notes the documentation, which questions several points of the work of the jurors.
Finally, the motion states that the sentence itself is legally unsustainable, as it would never have been possible to ask for compensation for lack of framing of the question of real malice by the accused.
“In order for the jury to believe that Ms. Heard demonstrates genuine malice, Mr. Depp was obliged to establish, at the time, the editorial [em que ela se disse sobrevivente de violência doméstica] it has been published, that Mrs. Heard did not believe she was being mistreated or that she had any doubts that she was being mistreated. But Mr. Depp has presented no evidence that Ms. Heard does not believe she has been mistreated. Instead, the evidence overwhelmingly proved that Ms. Heard believed she was abused by Depp. Therefore, Mr. Depp did not meet the legal requirements for actual intentional misconduct and the verdict must be overturned. “
It is worth mentioning that one of the judges gave a press interview essentially saying that Heard lost the contest for Depp for best actor. He also teased Heard: “Some of us have used the expression ‘crocodile tears'” to define him.
Source: Terra
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
