Amber Heard Appeals “Chilling” $10M Johnny Depp Defamation Verdict; Wants Reversal Or New Trial
deadline.comLess than a month after Johnny Depp filed his formal appeal of some of the verdict in his sweeping defamation case against Amber Heard, his Rum Diary co-star now has put her own brief in the Virginia courts And Heard’s new-ish lawyers are flying the flag of the First Amendment and taking trial court Judge Penney Azcarate to task, repeatedly. “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,” said Jay Ward Brown and David L.
Axelrod in the November 23 filed document. “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,” the Constitutional law specializing D.C.-based Ballard Spahr LLP attorneys added (read the appeal here). “That holding, if allowed to stand, undoubtedly will have a chilling effect on other women who wish to speak about abuse involving powerful men.” Further lambasting Judge Azcarate for improperly instructing the jury in the Fairfax County case that end almost entirely in Depp’s favor on June 1, and “excluding highly probative evidence and by admitting irrelevant and prejudicial evidence,” Heard’s appeal seeks to have the more than $10 million verdict against her reversed or tossed out for a new trial. “This case also should never have gone to trial because another court had already concluded that Depp abused Heard on multiple occasions,” the 68-page brief of appellant states. “After Depp filed this case, the United Kingdom High Court of Justice ruled in
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