New Delhi: Amber Heard has requested a new trial in her defamation case against Johnny Depp. Almost five months after a jury found Heard guilty of defaming her ex-husband, she has reportedly replaced the majority of her legal team. She has claimed that the Virginia courtroom where she lost her case against Depp was the wrong venue. Amber's attorneys Jay Ward Brown and David L. Axelrod argue in their appeal that the ruling would have a "chilling effect" on women who wish to come out about abuse by powerful men.
According to The New York Times, Heard's attorney penned the lengthy 68-page document, stating, "Instead of suing Heard in California, where both parties lived and where Depp claimed to have suffered reputational harm, Depp sued in Virginia, a wholly inconvenient forum with no connection to Depp or any meaningful connection to his claims. 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."
Judge Penney Azcarate's decision to exclude some pieces of evidence, including Heard's therapy notes that underlined her abuse, is being challenged in the fresh appeal, which asserts that the trial was conducted in the incorrect state and also objects to Azcarate's judgment.
They added, "The trial court improperly prevented the jury from considering several separate instances in which Heard reported Depp's abuse to a medical professional."
Heard's legal team formally requested a new trial or the rejection of the jury's judgment in the document. They went as far as saying the case shouldn't have gone to trial since another court had already ruled that Mr. Depp mistreated Ms. Heard several times, referring to the 2020 UK verdict.
In a defamation lawsuit that lasted seven weeks in a Virginia court, actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard received a lot of attention. Damages for defamation were set at $15 million by the jury's verdict in Depp's favor. Though Heard ultimately lost the case, she did win $2 million on a counterclaim she filed.