In her final statement, Camille Vasquez, Mr. Depp told the jury, “Mr Depp suffered persistent verbal, physical and emotional abuse by Mrs Heard. There is an abuser in this room, but he is not Mr Depp.”
The jury didn’t just have to make a decision on whether there was abuse.
Consideration should also be given to whether Mr. Heard could be considered legally defamatory and protected by the right to freedom of expression under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
The article, which did not name Mr. Depp, he was mainly talking about political issues of domestic violence.
But at the beginning of the case, Mr. Depp highlighted two passages, and an online headline, which he claimed were defamatory.
In the first passage, Mrs. Heard wrote that “two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse and felt the full force of the wrath of our culture.”
Depp’s lawyers argued that it was a clear reference to Mr. Depp, as Mrs Heard had publicly accused him of domestic violence in 2016.
In a second passage, he wrote, “I had the very rare view of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” ira “.
Ms Heard’s lawyers had argued that she did not write the headline online, so she could not be held responsible.