Could he look more like a sleazy dirtbag? Maybe that’s what they mean by “authentic.”
To make excuses for myself, it was a court case, and my perspective wouldn’t have made a difference — I’d have just been one of the thousands or more yammering on the internet about a trial. I’d been through this before, in the OJ Simpson case, where the cacophony of noise did not contribute to justice, but almost certainly skewed the fickle court of public opinion in unfavorable ways.
I’m speaking of the Amber Heard trial, which was decided yesterday in favor of Johnny Depp. I’ve avoided news of the case because enough snippets had leaked through to leave me sickened. On YouTube and social media, it was made clear that Depp was the affable rogue who made light of Heard’s case; Heard, on the other hand, was the conniving sociopath who could turn on the waterworks at an instant’s notice, and then, moments later, revert to stone-faced heartless bitch. Obviously, she was lying. Obviously, Captain Jack Sparrow was a misunderstood rascal.
Except…whenever I watched a clip of the trial, what I saw was a woman in pain, controlling herself because she didn’t want to play into the public perception of women as hysterical, while Depp was just an asshole. Even more poisonous was the Depp camp, which seemed to consist largely of the usual bros who were gleeful about an opportunity to shriek insults at a woman while not getting the usual social opprobrium. It was a repulsive spectacle. While I averted my eyes and avoided the trial news as much as I could, Rebecca Watson dug deeper, and I agree fully with her take.
Now the case has been settled. Depp won. This is going to have serious consequences.
…on Wednesday after a jury in Fairfax, Virginia, found Amber Heard guilty of defaming Depp in a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post, in which she identified herself as a public face of domestic abuse survivors, without explicitly naming Depp. Despite presenting photos of her injuries, video recordings of Depp’s meltdowns, and witness testimony supporting her claims of abuse, Depp was awarded $10 million plus $5 million in punitive damages. Heard was also awarded $2 million for winning one point in her countersuit.
But in truth, the highly publicized trial was decided in the court of public opinion weeks ago. As it played out over the last few weeks, with people on social media overwhelmingly aligning with the beloved Pirates of the Caribbean star, millions of stans and even brands and celebrities have excoriated Heard and accused her of fabricating the allegations against Depp, causing hashtags like #AmberTurd and #JusticeForJohnnyDepp to trend worldwide.
“This is basically the end of MeToo,” Dr. Jessica Taylor, a psychologist, forensic psychology Ph.D., and author of two books on misogyny and abuse, tells Rolling Stone. “It’s the death of the whole movement.”
As the verdict came in, sexual assault survivors expressed their disappointment with the decision, even if they were not surprised by it. “I don’t think it’s unexpected. But it’s horrible,” says one survivor, who herself faced a defamation claim after coming forward against her own abuser (and requested her name be withheld for legal reasons). She says the claim was dropped, but that watching Heard be dragged through the mud during the trial brought back memories of her own experience, which she says was traumatic and led her to consider suicide.
“I feel really glad to think my case didn’t go ahead. And stupid to think I could have won it,” she says. “Men always win.”
And I kept my mouth shut throughout. I’m always disappointing myself.
Rebecca didn’t mention the one case that impressed me with her point, that I mentioned at the beginning: the “trial of the century”, the OJ Simpson murder trial, which OJ won, because “Men always win.” Even after brutally chopping up Nicole Brown Simpson, he got off.
Well, sort of.
We all knew he did it, and his behavior after the trial confirmed it. His career in movies was dead, and you can’t even watch his old movies anymore without cringing deeply. I’m sure not going to watch a Naked Gun movie, ever again. It’s a similar situation now; knowing that Johnny Depp is a wife-beating arrogant dudebro means I’m not going to ever be able to watch a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, or any movie starring Depp, without feeling a little bit of disgust at the main character.
Not that that could be the slightest consolation to Amber Heard or especially Nicole Brown Simpson. At least Heard has escaped without being stabbed to death. This verdict makes it a little less likely that other victims of domestic abuse will get away with their lives.
Even before watching Rebecca’s video a few days ago I was seeing much the same thing. So very much sexism and misogyny to wade through, so much blatant double standard. Just about everyone taking Depp’s side just made Depp look more guilty to me – even the most good faith feminist leftists doing so seemed stuck on feeling validated by a narrative of an abusive woman that they may have experienced and so were wallowing in confirmation bias as they had all the most uncharitable interpretations of every word and movement Heard made.
And it’s so weird that essentially the same case went the other way in the UK where the courts favored the one claiming defamation. Well, much more the other way – this case was still split with findings of defamation both ways.
I must be different, because all I saw was a sleazy creep constantly smirking at the camera. Fuck Depp, fuck him with a pineapple. Sideways.
These things are always more complicated than any discourse the internet can sustain. I’m genuinely surprised that Heard lost the defamation suit, it seemed like her original statements were substantially evidenced, but lawsuits rarely make sense without a lot of study and legal understanding. All we’re going to be left with is two camps screaming at one another over the unrecognisable, smouldering ruins of a lawsuit, until the next thing comes along and the entire internet commentariat collectively forgets this ever happened.
You probably know nothing about Amber Heard, you probably know nothing about Johnny Depp, and you probably lack the expertise to usefully analyse the legal case. I think silence is probably the judicious choice, but unfortunately if regressive forces are declaring this the next battlefield in the endless culture war, your choices are to concede the terrain or fight for it. Countless lives figuratively lost over a small hill in the middle of nowhere.
…but throughout none of this is even the thought that Depp might be innocent a factor?
I don’t know either of them personally, but the default that “she accused him therefore he’s guilty by default” is kinda dangerous.
Seriously, I’m asking…what specifically could Depp do to prove innocence in the PUBLIC eye? Everything you wrote basically said “I know he did it and now here come the women haters” with the focus squarely on amber and her testimony. So let’s look at what we know:
-Every single denial from Depp is going to be assumed to be a lie.
-Every fact brought up by his lawyers is going to be assumed to be a lie or a stretch on her credibility.
-Everything that Depp said is assumed to be sexist in some form.
-No matter how he reacts to his accusations (controlled, dismissive, angry, neutral, etc) will ALL be treated as a sign that he’s lying. Literally everything.
So with the above in mind, I ask again…what could this guy possibly do to prove innocence to you? I don’t know 100% if he’s guilty or not, but pretending that he IS innocent, go ahead, tell me how he can possibly prove it to the public?
Answer is simple…he cannot, and thus SHE won in the end regardless. Every single time he tries to explain how he didn’t do it, all anyone will hear is a man lying so he can be sexist and abusive in secret. Innocence be damned, he’s now just another man who got away with it…and 5 trials won’t change that perception. Nothing will…and she knew it.
@mamba I expect the opposite. “Depp wasn’t found guilty in court, so it means he’s innocent!” The fact it was a civil case, with different and lower standards of evidence, will be ignored, on top of not being convicted of something doesn’t mean you did it.
mamba @4: Depp already lost a lawsuit in the UK over the same abuse allegations (vs The Sun). And defamation is easier to prove under UK laws than under US laws. The judge in that case determined that there was sufficient evidence to support Heard’s claims of abuse. In this case, it looks an awful lot like Depp’s legal team took the results of that case and carefully constructed a narrative to discredit it.
That should have been “not being convicted of something doesn’t mean you didn’t do it.”
I’m going to confess that these headlines have all been getting blocked by my mental “celebrity dispute” filter so I knew there was some trial or other between Depp and Heard (hard not to) but didn’t know what it was about, let alone had any interest in taking sides.
OK, I will watch Rebecca Watson’s video. This is clearly more significant than I thought. (I take issue with “You’re wrong…” since I had not formed any opinion. OK, maybe that was wrong.)
My favorite Depp performance was in Ed Wood. I have only seen bits and pieces of the Pirates franchise. So, fine, he’s off the list. With Woody Allen and a few other artists I once admired. That’s easy enough. I hope it’s not the death of MeToo. It doesn’t have to be. It’s a setback to be sure.
I’ve done what I’ve long done with trials, ignored the living shit out of them, as historically, all I get out of press accounts are all flash in the pan shiny nuggets, fact sparse reporting on what took all week to present. Let’s face it, you hear one or two factoids mirrored in the press – over a fucking week of testimony. A hell of a lot is getting presented to a judge and jury that isn’t even mentioned.
Because the press, even when ostensibly neutral, has its own intrinsic bias, it jumps for the shiny and ignores everything else. Shiny sells.
My overall view is, while both had their asshole moments, as we all have had, Depp has the longer history of disturbing moments. Beyond that, wasn’t in the jury box, but I also remember as a repeated juror, we don’t have a system of justice and never had, we have a system of what is legal. The two are remarkably different, as the victims frequently are punished for an unkind word in our legal system and justice is consistently denied to the victim.
Still, I take issue with “OJ hacked”, he didn’t hack anyone apart. He merely nearly decapitated them. With a knife.
Which is a type of savagery all its own.
Well, as it’s nearly lunch time, it’s time to plan dinner. I’ve leftover mixed greens (in sauteed garlic, chili pepper flakes, onion in chicken bouillon), leftover mashed potatoes (still have two uncooked yams as alternates, one orange yam, one white yam) and no defrosted meat save a pack of scrapple that I forgot I set in the fridge to defrost last week. Think I’ve a plan.
Set a pork chop to defrost along with some sliced cooked ham while preparing the scrapple, reheat the rest. That should cover the weekend too. A hand sized pork chop is two days of dinner meat for me.
Next science project: Figure out what to do with the bag of dried, sugared cranberries I unburied in the pantry shelf…
Oh, utterly OT…
Saw an odd blurb from the CDC. Apparently, there are lower incidence of COVID infections amongst those with food allergies. No listing of what allergies, as that might prove to be useful information.
Well, that’s good science for you, the occasional report of, “Hey, I don’t know if this means anything, but I’ve observed this repeatedly”.
The last off the wall that far I saw was one that confused results of neutrino measurements, as the only conclusion was understood to be wrong, but the cause of the errors couldn’t be found by the team and neutrinos most certainly do not move at superluminal velocities. Peers eventually figured out dust in the fiberoptics was the likely culprit and sure enough, it was and results started coming in that made sense.
Ran into weirdness myself once. A prototype voltage step up unit, running off of a HF oscillator wasn’t giving me 10:1 boost as it should, it was giving me 100:1 boost. A peer looked it over, turned out that a defect in the transformer introduced a capacitive feedback of its own, giving both a higher fundamental frequency as feedback and resonance gave an unexpected boost. Tightened the feedback circuit design to the desired frequency and life proceeded without exploded capacitors all over the place.
I ignored it, except to conclude that Depp is irrecovably “burned” for me. I won’t go to a movie he’s starring in. Because I felt that – whether he was right or wrong – the smirking assholishness he displayed… ew, ugh. And, of course, if a rock legend invited any normal person to jam arlt RAH, of course you do it, but Depp was flexing. It’s my interpretation, but that was one of the more dickish moves I have ever seen. So, goodbye Johnny. I hope he has no remains of a career. He’s old enough and he’s very rich – maybe he could drop from the public eye and enjoy the rest of his life learning a new hobby like dagger-making. I don’t want to hear about him.
The bloodthirsty fanbase … ugh. There’s some moral pathology there.
Depp shows classic signs of psychopathic narcissism. Those of more normal psychological dispositions serve as fodder or prey for these people. There is no good “rational” response to such a situation. A victim of such a personality cannot help but suffer serious emotional dissonance and distress. The idea that others of like psychopathies are attracted to this is more than disturbing. Treating “your woman” as property is a very right wing Christian thing to be into.
wzrd1@10
Write some Vogon poetry in their honor?
@mamba What could he do to “prove his innocence”? Well, not filing lawsuits that look like a classic examples of an abuser doing SLAPP suits to continue harassing a victim would be a good start.
Also, all of your “what we know” things were clearly done worse to Heard. She was subjected to much more hyper scrutiny over every little thing. I saw multiple feminist types doing classic sexist micro-analyzing every glance or twitch or word choice. All kinds of classic examples of a victim must be lying if they’re not absolutely perfect.
So that question is meaningless because it applies at least as much to Heard.
In addition to how it comes across as nonsensical as a hypothetical because we already have a lot of evidence indicating that there’s no “innocence” involved. It’s very difficult to entertain that in ways other than fantastical ones like “go back in time and do a better job of destroying evidence”.
I did the exact same thing throughout. I tried to avoid and clicked away from any news about it, as much as I could, because I could already sense it was an overly hyped spectacle that would only leave me confused an gut-wrenched. I also had no idea who the villain was in this thing, and I frankly didn’t care. I never realized the importance and repercussions of this case for #metoo and women’s rights or feminism in general until the case was decided and several women voices pointed this out. Now I’m even more appalled. I’ll try to watch Rebecca’s undoubtedly excellent take, but I’m not sure, if I can stomach the whole thing.
I completely agree with Watson’s take, among other things that women are held to higher standards than men, and to a ridiculous extent. It explains a lot of things. Brett Kavanaugh’s SCOTUS trial is one recent example. (I wrote this before hearing Waston reference it around 18 minutes in.) Another one is the 2016 election.
(Or I should say “privileged men” because advising someone to “be authentic” or “let it all hang out” is a trap unless they already have an inside track.)
It’s news to me that “impression management” is a bad thing or somehow dishonest. Though I never heard that phrase before, it’s obvious that you need to work consciously to create a good impression unless you’re among people predisposed to be on your side. It’s a life skill, not a personality flaw.
I’d watch if he were in bed with a TV and reunited with Freddy Krueger.
I respect that you have your views on this case, I do as well…and, mine couldn’t be more different than yours. I did watch the trial, and I went into it with an open mind waiting to see what both sides presented. My decision did fall in his favor, I didn’t believe her. Not because of the media or fans haranguing her…I didn’t believe the case her side put forth. I believe women and men should be heard when they claim abuse…abuse is horrible. This case left me with the belief that both sides were abusive in many ways…if I were to simply go off of what I heard. The thing is, her side did fail to put forward a convincing case about what she says she endured, whereas his put together a pretty convincing case about what she was like. He had several witnesses talking about what they saw and heard first-hand. His side had medical specialists who spoke to both of them and didn’t simply hear one side. In my view, her legal team simply did not put forward a good enough case…and jurors have to weigh evidence.
When it comes right down to it…what they had to weigh was did she (or he) internationally make defamatory statements? And yes is the answer I had to come to. She even continued to do so during the trial, repeatedly referring to a rumor that had spread that prompted her to take action. When it came out that the rumor was in fact false…it was very difficult not to see how the jury would come down primarily on his side. When a studio executive stated that Depp wasn’t the reason her screen time was cut in Aquaman 2, that’s also pretty powerful. She made claims that systematically were taken apart.
Now…perhaps they will leave each other alone and move on.
@mamba
There’s video of him screaming and throwing an empty glass bottle at Heard. I don’t know if they’re both abusive to each other- it’s possible and I didn’t watch the trial for all the other reasons above. But he absolutely, on video, was abusive.
@18
Seriously? I didn’t watch the trial, so maybe this is more compelling than you make it sound, but a studio executive has financial incentives for denying any particular cause of any action taken when making a movie. Obviously, their official line has to be that all changes are solely intended to improve the quality (or just the marketability) of the final product. Why would they stray from that?
Corporate-speak. It’s not that hard: Why did the CEO sell shares? Routine diversification. Was the product rebranded due to this recent news story? No, of course not. We simply felt it was time to update our image.
Even if they’re denying it under oath, good luck showing perjury. The executive doesn’t even have to be lying. They can honestly state that there are all kinds of reasons for making changes during film production. It seems like an incredibly weak piece of testimony to me.
@PaulBC @20
Depp sued Heard claiming defamation was hurting his career. So as a response Heard countersued alleging his claims that she was lying and defaming her were defamation hurting her career. And it seems the result here is the court agreeing they defamed each other.
So I agree with you that I can’t imagine that executive’s testimony being “powerful”. That statement would only be saying that Heard’s claim that Depp lying about her did not hurt her career. That doesn’t prove anything other than the defamation did no damage that could get an award (assuming said executive was truthful). It doesn’t prove Depp did not lie about Heard. At most it says that Heard is mistaken that Depp’s claims hurt her career in the case of that one movie.
@Anita Dugan-Moore
That is a classical ad-hominem. What his legal team managed to do was to prove that Heard was a horrible human being – which whether true or false had no bearing on whether her op-ed defamed him. He’s clearly guilty of some of the things she wrote about which should work out to he loses the case irrespective of what Heard did to him – He is ofcourse free to write op-eds on how he was abused too.
If you do have an open mind look at the UK case evidence and reasoning by a Judge rather than an easily swayed Jury of the public (who werent even sequestered!)
I kinda feel like this whole kerfuffle is a case of “everyone involved sucks”. I’ve certainly see enough leaked comments from Depp to be convinced he’s capable of being everything Heard accused him of, and equally Heard herself has at least one domestic violence arrest for allegedly hitting/grabbing her girlfriend at the time in an airport for which she wasn’t prosecuted, allegedly again, due to prosecutors not wanting to drag her back from California for a misdemeanor trial.
That latter bit of info, right or wrong, is why a lot of the leftist MeToo supporters I know personally checked out of the whole thing.
I’ll add that Anita Dugan-Moore’s comment has the tone of a concern troll (yes, tone can be deceiving). Google also shows this is the first time anyone has posted to FTB with that name (again, my query may be wrong, Google may be incomplete, there’s a first time for everyone). So my gut reaction is that this is a drive-by “‘reasonable’ counterpoint” but I’m not a mind reader.
@PaulBC #1,
No can do, my interpretation of Vogon poetry was banned as a crime against the galaxies decades ago, it’s more taboo than Krikkit, due to the sheer death toll exceeding their antics. Vogon reproductive rates remain depressed after my implementation of poetry was prohibited.
Much to the delight of consumers of the galactic civil service services…
It’s hard to read a blank, ya know. Mindreaders still haven’t figured that out about me. ;)
Perhaps more relevant to modern events, O.J. Simpson was acquitted primarily because of egregious police misconduct. The police carried a vial of his blood to the crime scene and then claimed they found his blood there. The police jumped the wall of his housing compound and then claimed they found evidence that they likely planted. The jury had to discredit almost everything the police presented.
We are continuing to see widespread police misconduct to the point that many people say ‘defund the police’ because they are more of a threat than the criminals. A bit extreme, but the O.J. Simpson case was more an example of police misconduct than jury misconduct.
Through the trial YouTube was full of the most vile misogyny, gloating over every Heard setback. Many American men it seems hate women as much as the Taliban do.
Good article in The Guardian here :
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/01/amber-heard-johnny-depp-trial-metoo-backlash
I haven’t followed the Depp vs Heard defamation trial much. I don’t really know but from what I have seen & heard both Depp & Heard have hurt each other, been toxic for each other & would have been wiser to split up amicably long ago. However, I don’t think Amber Heard would have gone through all this circus & faced all the hatred & mockery she’s copped without very good reason & will remind folks that she won in the UK with the trial there concluding her case was substantially true on 12 of 14 counts.
I fear this new USA verdict will silence other victims, enable more abuse of partners, spouses & family members & empower rich, privileged, violent perpetrators to harm others at incalculable cost in pain & suffering, injuries & lives.
I think we must also note that whatever the specifics of this case the statistics are very clear that women are the most common victims of domestic violence & false claims are extremely rare whilst many more cases go unreported.
Also what the ABC writes here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-29/johnny-depp-amber-heard-domestic-violence/
Apologies if anyone ha salready posted either these.
Dolph Lundgren is one of those who spoke out in favor of Amber Heard in public.
I just want to remind you, not all action film actors belong to the douchebag camp.
I’m trying to see it from both sides and I have a facebook friend (woman btw) who really hates her and referred to this morning as “really great news” and…
well, I just don’t see how someone can admit to 12 accounts of roughing someone up and claiming defamation when someone says he’s abusive. At the very best that’s complete chickenshit.
@8. PaulBC : Same here. I’m not particularly interested in celebrity actor relationships and seemingly nasty gossipy type disputes to begin with so didn’t pay much attention to start until the latest news. For once, it seems being rich and famous has actually been a real negative for Amber Heard at least.
@ mamba (2 June 2022 at 10:21 am) :
A factor? A thought yes – until you look at the evidence and learn about this case which makes that thought seem ever less probable and more and more an incorrect thought given what we’re coming to know about Depp and his treatment of his former wife.
Is it though?
You think its “kinda dangerous” to assume victims of abuse are telling the truth? Seriously?
Yes. My default assumption is that people – especially victims of intimate partner / family abuse are telling the truth unless there is compelling reason to think otherwise. I generally don’t assume people are lying especially apparent victims of crime. Why should I?
What do you the default should be instead – the wimminz b lyin? – as the automatic defult? Do you think that assumption is “safer” or better and if so why? Isn’t that already the default position of misogynists and those conditioned by rape culture to dismiss complaints against powerful abusers?
Provide an alibi showing he couldn’t have been at place X when Y happened? Provide tangible, solid evidence that when Heard said X, the actual situation was Y? Make a lot better case for it and show a lot more respect and compassion for her than he has done? Maybe things like NOT sending texts to his friends describing his fantasies of murdering her and then engaging in necrophilia with her burnt corpse as he actually did?
Will it be?
Assumed by who?
Some feminists or members of the general public? Members of “team Depp” and the rabid anti-feminist fan base? The jury -well, clearly not them. So that’s disproven already for a start.
As # 5 timgueguen & # 14 John-Henry Beck & # 27 nomdeplume have already noted that applies at leats as much to herad and simply isn’t thecase for Depp in alot of people’s metaphorical eyes anyhow.
Let me turn it around, look at the other angle and ask you and other Depp stans :
1) is every single claim from Amber Heard be assumed to be a lie?
2) Will every fact brought up by her lawyers be assumed to be a lie or a stretch on her credibility?
3) Will everything that Heard said be assumed to be misandrist or based on gender politics & myths about women making unfounded claims for profuit or publicity rather than reality?
4) No matter how she reacts to his accusations (controlled, dismissive, angry, neutral, etc) will that be treated as a sign that she’s lying?
Really? Oh noez! The poor, rich, misogynist movie star! Woe is him! Woeeeeee….
Actually no. I’ve already answered that earlier in this comment but, again, let me turn that around and ask you (& other Depp fans here) what would it take for you to accept that Depp is guilty and Amber Heard is telling the truth here? How can she prove it to the public and you and others who resolutely seem determined to disbelive her account often seemingly based on misogynist tropes and stereotypes and abusive claims about her?
She won huh? Wow, sure that will be news to all the misogynist Depp fans & assorted culture warrior reichwing docuhebags proudly trumpeting the end of #MeToo and to Depp and Heard themselves. Glad a random internet commenter has cleared up that judicial verdict and story for us all. (Eyeroll.)
Well, for starters its hardly secret anymore is it?
Anyone huh? Yeah, who that again? Every singe person now agrees with Amber Heard because .. wait, no. What uter cow chutney.
Some people, yes, will now see Depp in the light of his own words and actions – and the verdict of a British Judge who viewed and studied the evidence in the UK trial which found Amber Herad was teling the truth in 12 of her 14 accounts of her being choked, punched, slapped, head-butted, throttled and kicked – as a muisogynist lying perpetrator of intimate partenr abuse. I will for one.
Sadly, all too many others won’t and like the USA’s jury will still be smitten by his sleazy charm and will see him as the victim and her as a liar here as you, mamba, clearly do. I find that depressing and another eye-opener on how misogynist and rape culture-y we still are..
Did the UK trial result* change your perception, mamba? Will an possible -even probable – appeal victory for Amber Heard showing the jury got it wrong change your vierw now mamba?
Do you think it will change the views of other Depp fans and misogynists who hope this ends the era of rich and famous people being successfully re-evaluated when evidence of what they did to others – mainly but not only women – comes to light?
.* See :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-02/johnny-depp-loses-libel-case-in-uk-court-wife-beater-amber-heard/12840998
StevoR@32
While I think Heard’s side is backed by evidence, I also think this misses the point. It wasn’t a criminal trial to determine Depp’s guilt or innocence. It was a defamation suit and one that he instigated.
Normally, an op-ed column would be protected speech, and that includes ones filled with false statements (“Iraq will be a cakewalk.” “Raising taxes will throw us into recession.”) and ones that impugn the reputation of public figures (numerous). False accusations are another matter, but the burden of proof is very different from a criminal trial since Depp is the one demanding damages.
Beyond that, I’m not going to wade any further into judgment (IANAL and have had no interest in this trial till now). The issue here is the chilling effect on any abused women attempting make a public statement about her abuser.
The fact stands that Depp was never in any danger of facing criminal penalties for Heard’s accusation. So the issue of his “innocence” isn’t the salient point, but whether abused women are free to come forth without facing draconian penalties if they fail to make a strong enough case. Is the new rule that if you don’t have enough evidence to convict, then you better just shut up?
I would accept the conclusion that Depp “might” not have don’t everything claimed and therefore Heard’s op-ed may be held in doubt. I do not accept the outrageously inverted burden of proof such that any doubt cast on the accusations results in an assumption of guilt for the accuser. That is what is at stake here.
Meh.
Way I see it, plaintiff A sued B for $50M, whence defendant B counter sued A for $100M.
Obs, neither of them is hurting for $$$.
(Lawyers say: “Yum!”)
I read Rebecca Watson’s piece when Oceanoxia first posted it.
Amber Heard writing a piece in the Washington Post about being the victim of domestic abuse but not naming Johnny Depp by name is a lot like Republicans outing Valerie Place when she was active CIA, by referring to her only as Joseph Wilson’s wife. Whether names were named or not, you knew damn well who was being talked about. That said, punching someone, slapping someone, splitting their lip, throwing them to the ground, etc.? ALL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. There is no way you can whitewash that fact, which is why the misogynistic trolls piled on the character assassination of Amber Heard. Especially since there were clearly witnesses for some of the incidents. Therefore, by definition, her comment that she was the victim/survivor of domestic violence was not defamatory because the behavior in question clearly occurred. The other things she said? May or may not have been defamatory.
The truth is that this country treats the victims of domestic violence horribly, whether they are male or female. I dated a guy–briefly–whose ex-wife used to beat him when they were still married, so badly that at one point he had to go to the ER for emergency medical treatment and to remove the contact lens that had gotten jammed in his eye. (She punched him in the eye, and gave him a black eye, which is how the contact lens got jammed in his eye to the point that medical extraction was needed.)
The cops pretty much have to have their arms twisted to answer a domestic violence call. I called 911 to deal with domestic violence against kids in a neighboring unit. Spent 15-20 minutes arguing with dispatch about the need to send cops. Keep in mind the reason I called is because the boyfriend of the kids’ mom threatened to to throw the older kid–who was 6-7 years old at the time–down the stairs. The older kid grabbed the younger kid and ran out of the apartment, jumped into mom’s SUV & locked the doors with a skill and speed that would have been the envy of any NASCAR pit crew. The boyfriend broke the mom’s arm so badly that she needed surgery to fix the arm and now has a permanent metal plate as a repair device for her elbow. The idiot STILL won’t leave him. When the cops finally arrived, the kids were still in the SUV & the cops found the apartment full of broken furniture and holes punched in the walls.
Back to Depp and Heard. What I find so telling in this video (I tried to find the least sensationalist one) is the alcohol abuse/addiction coupled with the random violence aimed at the inanimate objects. Depp, like most abusers, doesn’t have to actually hit his target to intimidate. The smashed glasses, smashed cabinets, etc. all send a very clear message to the target: “you could be next. What I did to the cabinet & other inanimate objects I can also do to you.”
The supersize-me jumbo glass of wine as breakfast beverage–or just breakfast–is a nice touch.
I suspect that both Heard and Depp are damaged people who are clearly toxic for each other. The recording where Heard admits to hitting Depp and telling him that no one will believe him certainly doesn’t paint her in the best light and unfortunately, is also painfully true. She is certainly not the most credible witness that you could hope to put on a witness stand.
None of that matters. The trial was a defamation trial, not a criminal trial. It’s not defamatory if it’s true. Criminal trials have the standard “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Tort cases–which is what the defamation trial was–only has the burden of preponderance of evidence. That means if it is 51% likely that defamation (or any tortious event) occurred, that’s all you need.
@4 Having watched the clip above, there honestly isn’t anything he could say or do that would convince me that he isn’t a wife-beater. And Amber Heard isn’t exactly the first woman who bailed on him for domestic violence. And his alcohol and drug abuse are pretty widely known and have been for several decades now. Substance abuse is often a factor in domestic violence.
@22 Judges are lawyers who get to grade their own law papers. In the US, many judgeships are appointed. Others are elected in noncompetitive elections. My last election, there were 6 candidates for 6 judgeship positions. So it didn’t matter who you voted for or if you voted. The “candidates” were going to become judges no matter what. And plenty of them are goddam stupid.
BTW, late news tonight announced that Heard is appealing the verdict. So this isn’t over by a long shot.
I admit that I am baffled by the decision. Even if you accept everything that Depp’s camp said as truth, there’s still the problem that Depp is a public figure and thus it’s very difficult — supposedly — to prove the “actual malice” needed to win a libel suit. A single statement in which Depp wasn’t even mentioned is proof of actual malice?
I mean, let’s accept Depp’s assertions that Heard is a sociopath spouse abuser who abused him. That has absolutely zero to do with proving actual malice in this particular case. It’s utterly irrelevant. He had to prove that Heard was lying and furthermore that Heard knew she was lying and was doing so maliciously in order to harm him. I didn’t hear anything that rose to the level of such proof.
Frankly, I think the whole Heard vs. Depp boils down to “don’t have sex with crazy.” Both of them seem rather unstable to me and I wouldn’t want either of them anywhere near my personal life. But that has absolutely nothing to do with proving libel, especially libel of a public figure, and there isn’t going to be any “looking for the real killer” here like with OJ.
Oh, the damages in the case were limited to $350k per statute, so nobody got financially stung.
I do find it curious how many commented that Depp is a public figure, as if Heard isn’t. So, actors are public figures, are actresses non-entities?
She did pen, with ghost writing by the ACLU, an op ed, which is what the defamation case was about, then it became he said, she said and both got statutory limited damages.
Sounds like a bad relationship gone toxic to hell and gone and neither wanted to just get the hell well and truly clear without trying to punish the other and eventually, they went to court, making lawyers really, really happy.
Bad Tux,
Point being, it only had to be proved to the satisfaction of jury, not to you.
And it evidently was, though not to yours.
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wzrd1, good comment.
One thing, though:
I entirely appreciate (and endorse) the sentiment you here express, but you should note that ‘actress’ is (or, better, is becoming) deprecated. They’re both actors.
(You know, like with ‘driver’, there aren’t drivers and driveresses)