There was a tiny ray of hope for Amber Heard when her legal team filed for the verdict from her defamation trial against Johnny Depp to be thrown out. However, it seems the actress is back to the first level as her motion for a re-trial was denied by the judge.
Following months of providing evidence and cross-examination of witnesses, the jury assigned to the Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp defamation case reached a verdict on June 1, which favored Depp and left Heard in a $10.3 million debt to her ex-husband, Amber and her legal team have since then made efforts to work around the verdict, even as Amber still stands by all she said during the trial.
Amber Heard’s Motion for a Re-trial Has Been Denied By Judge Azcarate
Heard’s legal team filed a motion to the court stating that the verdict reached by the jury was not based on the provided evidence and also that a juror was not supposed to be on the jury. In the filed documents, Heard’s lawyer claimed that the summons that was sent to the house of the expected juror was for a different person, although with the same last name as they were expecting.
The filing stated that “the discrepancy raised the question whether Juror 15 actually received a summon for jury duty and was properly vetted by the court to serve on the Jury.” Heard’s legal team then added that if so many errors were found, tossing the verdict and requesting a retrial was possible. However, Judge Azcarate disagrees.
In Court documents obtained by DailyMail, the Judge claims that the voir dire (which helps to determine “whether any juror has any interest in the case, or any bias or prejudice in relation to it, and that he in fact stands indifferent in the cause”) was conducted in a “fair and impartial manner.” The judge argued that both parties had enough time to vet the jurors and they concluded that “the jury panel was acceptable.”
Hence, if they decided then that Juror 15 was well vetted, they can not bring up errors and blame the court now. “Any error in the information shown on such copy of the jury panel shall not be grounds for a mistrial or assignable as error on appeal, and the parties in the case shall be responsible for verifying the accuracy of such,” this was brought to Heard’s notice as the Judge affirms that they could not have waited “until receiving an adverse verdict to object” since they knew since the beginning of the trial. The judge then denied their demand for the verdict to be thrown out.
The judge told Herd’s team, however, that they could file for an appeal. It is not news that the Aquaman actress has been looking for ways to avoid paying her ex-husband as she cannot afford to. Therefore, an appeal might not be an option for her as she has to provide a bond for the full amount she owes Depp, $10.35 million, even while the appeal is being processed. Earlier on, Depp stated that he was ready to let go of the money she was owing him only if she would not file for an appeal. She, however, lost that chance.
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