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A judge on Wednesday rejected Amber Heard’s request for the high-profile defamation case involving her and her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, to be declared null and void. Heard lost to Depp last month.
“There is no evidence of fraud or felony,” Judge Penney Azcarate testified in court.
Heard representatives have not responded to the Washington Post’s request for comment.
Depp sued Heard for $ 50 million in a 2018 opinion piece in which she described herself as a public figure representing domestic abuse (not to mention Depp by name). Heard sued for $ 100 million after a former Depp lawyer, Adam Waldman, referred to his allegations as a hoax.
After six intense weeks of testimony at the Fairfax County Circuit Court (the trial took place in Virginia because The Post’s printing presses and servers are there), a seven-person jury on June 1 found that Heard, in fact, had defamed Depp with the op. -ed. He was awarded $ 15 million, a sum reduced to $ 10.35 million because Virginia law limits punitive damages. Heard received $ 2 million after the jury found out that Waldman had defamed Heard, one of three points made in his counterclaim.
After the Depp-Heard verdict: confusion, euphoria and, for a few, disappointment
Earlier this month, Heard’s attorneys filed a null statement of the trial for several factors, including his claim that one of the seven jurors was not actually the person summoned to be a juror in April. Lawyers argued that the jury’s list included someone who “would have been 77 at the time,” but that the jury that participated was a 52-year-old man of the same name who lived in the same residence.
“As the Court certainly agrees,” the lawyers wrote, “it is deeply worrying that a person not summoned to the jury function appears as a juror and is part of a jury, especially in a case like this. “.
In Wednesday’s court order, Azcarate denied several of Heard’s post-trial motions for “reasons listed in the record,” but provided a detailed explanation of why the jury’s service was not grounded. Trial. The citation did not include a date of birth, according to Azcarate, and the jury wrote his date of birth on a questionnaire that “met the legal requirements for service.” The judge noted that both parties questioned the jury and declared it acceptable: “Therefore, due process was guaranteed and proportionate,” he wrote.
Azcarate also claimed that Heartd’s team received the jury’s list “five days before the start of the trial” and had numerous opportunities to oppose it over the course of a few weeks.
“The jury was examined, sat down for the entire jury, deliberated and came to a verdict,” Azcarate wrote. “The only evidence before this Court is that this jury and all the jurors followed their oaths, the instructions of the Court and the orders. This Court is bound by the competent decision of the jury.”