Johnny Depp Vindicated!

They came, they heard (LOL) and they returned the verdict.
Justice.

That’s it, Peace out.

I posted this in another thread, but what the heck, I'll post it again...

I heard about the Johnny Depp case.

I think the justice system got that one right.

Personally, I don’t think he proved his case. He proved 100x that she was a nasty person but he did not prove he lost money because of her.

Depp’s lawyer proved over and over that she is a nasy lying person. It is however an entirely different argument to say she caused him to lose money. This is a stretch of the imagination.

My opinion of course and I am not a lawyer thank goodness.

Sh1t hit the fan, everybody are marked,

What does “everybody are marked” mean?

Sadly, when you’re throwing dirt, your hands get dirty.

Hope mr. Depp soon gets the offers he so deserves for being a superb actor.

Though IMHO mrs. Heard has earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress in a court case, I hope I’ll never see her again.

In what universe is it “vindication” to be found liable for defamation in a defamation lawsuit?

“…I am not a lawyer thank goodness.”
[quoted from an earlier post]
It’s popular to put down lawyers and blame them for a lot of problems they don’t cause, but there are good and bad people in every profession. Being a paid combatant in our adversarial civil or criminal justice systems, or trying to accomplish positive change in government as an attorney, are jobs that are necessary, but difficult. Addressing and managing conflict is a part of the job description, which is one reason why people associate lawyers with bad behavior or negative outcomes - but it is a function of the role lawyers have to play, not a quality in every lawyer.

I went to law school decades ago in order to prepare for a career in which I could work to improve peoples’ lives. I don’t like conflict at all, but I felt I could use my background (and my other background in economics and statistics) to accomplish some things that would help people who needed help. I left the profession after only about seven years as an attorney, because I was ordered to lie, and I considered that lie a violation of my oath of office in my government position. I realized that my decision was going to kill my career, but I could not have lived with myself if I had done as I was ordered to do.

Is it possible to be a prosecuting attorney or a defense lawyer performing your duty to the best of your ability and not lie or promote falsehoods?

Prosecutors are legally required not to lie. They also are legally required to protect the legal rights of the defendants, as well as representing the victims of crime. In criminal cases they are also legally required to reveal evidence they find that would tend to exculpate the defendant, and they must also hand over to the defense evidence revealing any past untruthful statements of the government’s witnesses. If you’re interested, I can share with you in a PM examples of prosecutors I’ve seen going way beyond what’s legally required to protect the rights of defendants.

Defense attorneys are required in our adversarial legal system to put forward the best defense they can for their clients - including arguing they are innocent of the crime. This is a role few people really understand until they are falsely arrested or cited for a criminal offense they didn’t commit. Even with a guilty client (and most are guilty), the defense attorney’s basic job is to argue that the government has not met the high burden of proof on all the crime elements necessary to convict the defendant (beyond a reasonable doubt). So the claim of innocence doesn’t really go to the heart of what a defense attorney focuses on in a trial, anyway.

After watching a fair part of the proceedings in the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial, I came to the same conclusion as the jury. Ms. Heard was not defamed when Mr. Depp's attorney in the UK called her claims of IPV (intimate partner violence) a HOAX.

In Heard's countersuit against Depp, the jury was charged with determining which, if any, of three statements made by Johnny Depp's attorney defamed Ms. Heard. All three flatly accuse Amber Heard of perpetrating a hoax. The third is restricted solely to that claim.

The three statements can be found in the jury instructions that were published online at:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/circuit/sites/circuit/files/assets/documents/pdf/high-profile/depp%20v%20heard/cl-2019-2911-plaintiff-memo-obj-mot-rev-verdict-form-5-31-2022.pdf

  1. Amber Heard and her friends in the media use fake sexual violence allegations as both a sword and shield, depending on their needs. They have selected some of her sexual violence hoax 'facts' as the sword, inflicting them on the public and Mr. Depp.
  2. Quite simply, this was an ambush, a hoax. They set Mr. Depp up by calling the cops but the first attempt did not do the trick. The officers came to the penthouses, thoroughly searched and interviewed, and left after seeing no damage to face or property. So Amber and her friends spilled a little wine and roughed the place up, and got their stories straight under the direction of a lawyer and publicist, and then placed a second call to 911.
  3. [W]e have reached the beginning of the end of Ms. Heard's abuse hoax against Johnny Depp.

We may see the completed verdict forms at some future date. We may also hear from members of the jury at some point. Given the simplicity of number 3, however, it is my opinion that the jury must have decided that Amber Heard's claims of abuse were a HOAX.

The only claim on which the jury found in Ms. Heard's favor was number 2. I believe, however, that the reason was due to an error of fact. During the trial, police testimony, supported by body cam footage from the second police call, showed that the penthouse had not been "roughed up" when they were there. That occurred only after the police left, at which time Amber and/or her friends took photos of the result.

Technically, therefore, statement number 2 was false. It wrongly claims that the penthouse had been roughed up before the second police call.

By itself, that should not be sufficient to find in Heard's favor. An additional finding of malice would have been required for that. Perhaps the jury found problems with some other part of the statement, probably revolving around the detailed accusation of conspiracy. Or perhaps the jury made a mistake...

My ultimate judgement was that Johnny Depp was a victim of intimate partner violence perpetrated by his spouse, Amber Heard.

Although Johnny won—and I am glad he did—the entire proceeding was a disturbing public service advertisement about the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse. Johnny Depp came across as a pathetic abuser of both.

With examples like that, you don't have to preach very much to your kids. Just have them watch the trial.

The whole thing reminded of the performance Ozzy Osbourne gave on his reality television show The Osbournes, which aired on MTV in the early aughts.

So John C. Depp can now get a Vindicators jacket and go with Morty on the “Vindicators 4” episode.

Does Amber have large sums of cash—does she live a lifestyle of the rich and famous?

i’m guessing he won’t see a dollar of the award; winning and collecting are 2 different thangs.

Much respect to NH for showing integrity and strong character in a tough situation. :+1:

Without knowing Johnny and Amber’s Duv preferences, I don’t see how I can form a valid opinion.

On the LegalBytes YouTube stream, I heard there is a federal law against discharging punitive damage awards in bankruptcy court. If so, then Johnny may end up collecting the $350,000 he was so awarded, if only through periodic wage attachments over a prolonged period of time.

The $10 million in compensatory damages, however, is different story. Hopefully, Johnny will at least be able to offset the $2 million in compensatory damages he was ordered to pay Amber against the $10 mil. she was ordered to pay him.

But the other $8 million, well, that may be hard to collect!

He was “cancelled” by Disney and lost his chance to reprise his role in “Fantastic Beasts” as Grindenwald. As much as I like Mads Mikkelson, Johnny was flat-out cheated out of it and that part was flat-out stolen from him.

Meanwhile Amber Turn goes on as usual, even gets into The Aquaman movie until a petition of 5 million signatures got her part cut to 10min, and I think she was finally bounced due to “lack of chemistry” with Jason Momoa.

Think about it. 5 million people actually gave enough of an amber to sign a petition to get her bounced.

You’d be hard-pressed to get 1M people to sign a petition against kicking puppies.

Anyhoo, we were all saying that it wasn’t about the money, that Johnny just wanted to get his side out there. All these celebrity-obsessed teevee shows were all Team Amber during the trial, and are even spinning it now as both of them lost. But Johnny only lost on the count where the statement was made by his lawyer, about Amber and BFFs staging “evidence” but without proof.

And their respective statements told all, too. Amber was bitching about “freedom of speech” (ummm, slander, libel, and defamation isn’t included, beeyotch), while Johnny’s was about being grateful and being able to carry on again with his kids, and about getting his side of the story out there.

Mission accomplished! The trial was live-streamed, so teevee shows couldn’t put their pro-Amber spin on things, actual evidence was shown, recordings played, and we all got to see what a lying sack of amber she really is.

Oh, and I loved the way her testimony was mirroring various movie scenes! Playing her testimony and then those movie clips was priceless! She was fabricating things as she went along.

And yeah, the big problem was that people were all jumping to the defense of the poor victim of DV, not even bothering to get Johnny’s side of it, slandering him, “cancelling” him, and it did cost him at least one major movie part.

I agree with the general sentiment of your post. I do think Johnny Depp lost his place in franchises because of negative publicity. If anyone believes Heard didn’t make a concentrated effort to get Depp canceled, I challenge them to watch more footage of the trial. Don’t just go off of headlines and funny moments posted in Youtube shorts.

Just to set the record straight though, an executive from Warner Brothers testified that Heard’s role in Aquaman was not reduced due to anything related to the case. In fact, it was stated that her chemistry with Jason Mamoa (and presumably their working relationship) was so bad that they considered recasting the role of Mera in Aquaman and her reduced role was a symptom of that consideration.

Here is a video of the testimony:

Amber Heard will get paid $2 million for Aquaman 2, even if she ends up getting cut completely out of the movie. The studio is on the hook, because it formally exercised its option in the contract for the original Aquaman to hire her for the sequel.

Amber also still has in her possession nearly all of the $7 million from her divorce settlement, in spite of her claim to have "donated" it to charity.

So, Amber may have an estate worth as much as $9 million. If she was able to invest any of the earnings from her early career, including her $1 million fee for the original Aquaman, it could be more.

Against that, Amber asserted during trial that her lawyers were being paid $6 million. If she really pays that, it is hard to imagine she will have anything close to enough left over to pay the damages she now owes Johnny Depp.

There is also the matter of Johnny's attorney costs. I am uncertain whether he can go after Amber for those.

I normally get sucked into watching these kinds of sensational trials, but thank God I didn’t get sucked into watching this one. Be gone with both of them.

I had a vague idea there was a trial underway. Now that it is over I still don’t know much of what transpired and I do not feel any worse for not knowing.

Heard probably lied about paying those lawyers $6 million. If she actually paid that amount she got cheated because no way in hell were those people worth $600,000 much less $6 million.

However, I don’t think Depp’s object to get rich from the lawsuit but to clear his name so he could get good jobs again. In that sense it was probably a good investment even if he doesn’t get paid by Heard.

I’m the opposite. Normally I don’t pay any attention to celebrity trials. Personally I think you missed out watching the others and not this one. The sheer entertainment value of Depp vs Heard will probably go unmatched for decades!

I think people cared for two reasons:

A) There are lots of Pirates of the Caribbean fans
B) The trial was chaotic, ridiculous, and entertaining to watch even if you didn’t think either of them deserved a payday.