Johnny Depp may lose defamation case even if Amber Heard flops on the stand, legal experts say

Actress Amber Read’s “efficiency” on the stand final 7 days — which is what Johnny Depp’s legal crew has called it — has been broadly panned. But that could not be enough to give her ex-partner Depp a victory in his defamation scenario versus her, experts informed Fox Information Digital.

Demo guide and physique language qualified Susan Constantine analyzed Heard’s change in the witness box and gave her a thumbs down for believability. 

“She is not truthful and most of what she’s expressing is a lie,” Constantine said in her estimation.

“This is these kinds of terrible acting, I do not know how she’s likely to get a motion picture part soon after this.”

“This is such bad performing, I really don’t know how she’s likely to get a film job immediately after this,” mentioned demo specialist and physique language pro Susan Constantine

Depp, 58, is suing Read, 36, for $50 million over a 2018 op-ed she wrote in the Washington Submit determining herself as “a general public figure representing domestic abuse.” 

While the piece didn’t reference Depp by title, he promises it wrecked his occupation and turned him into a Hollywood pariah.  

JOHNNY DEPP V. AMBER Read DEFAMATION Trial: Live UPDATES

Heard is countersuing for $100 million, accusing Depp and his previous lawyer of conspiring to defame her by calling her abuse allegations a “hoax.”

Listened to invested two days on the stand final week chronicling Depp’s alleged acts of verbal, actual physical and sexual abuse that she suggests left her with a broken nose, black eyes and bruises.

In agonizing depth, Read described how Depp allegedly raped her with a bottle of Maker’s Mark in a drug-fueled rage on a vacation to Australia in March 2015.  

But lots of critics have known as out her tearless sobbing and melodramatic tone as inauthentic.

Heard’s facial expressions and body actions are incongruent and so exaggerated as to be “off the scales,” Constantine said. She added that the “Aquaman” star recounts far too numerous extraneous information that trauma victims ordinarily wouldn’t recall — primarily 6 or a lot more many years following the simple fact. 

JOHNNY DEPP V. AMBER Heard: THE Shocking TRIAL’S WILDEST Times

“Liars give you far too much data,” she mentioned. 

But that doesn’t signify that all the things Read has explained isn’t accurate, Constantine pointed out. 

“I believe that when she described the headbutt, she was currently being truthful,” she claimed, referring to Heard’s allegation that Depp introduced his head into her and choked her unconscious all through an 2015 argument at their penthouse.

“I do feel he was verbally degrading at instances,” she extra.

To start with Modification law firm George Freeman, director of the Media Regulation Resource Center, said that Depp has a steep hill to climb to gain the case. The “Black Mass” actor has to demonstrate not only that Heard’s statements are wrong but that she realized they were being bogus when she designed them, Freeman mentioned. 

“When a public figure sues, it’s a great deal more hard to get,” said To start with Modification lawyer George Freeman

He also has to persuade the jury that her accusations basically damaged his reputation.

“When a community determine sues, it really is substantially a lot more difficult to win,” Freeman defined. “He has to demonstrate what was heading on inside of her head, that she knew she was lying.” 

A private person only has to confirm carelessness or carelessness to prevail in a defamation case.

Heard’s law firm, Ben Rottenborn, has argued that Depp also has to confirm that Listened to was essentially referring to him in the op-ed. If he does, the jury only has to uncover that Depp verbally abused Read at the time for him to shed his defamation case, the legal professional has claimed.

But civil and matrimonial lawyer Marilyn Chinitz disagreed, countering that the op-ed plainly referenced Depp and a domestic violence assert Heard publicly made from him two a long time prior.

The “London Fields” star, with bruises on her facial area and paparazzi in tow, went to a Los Angeles courthouse to acquire a restraining order in opposition to Depp in May well 2016, accusing him of bashing her in the eye with a cellphone. 

“It is a apparent line of expressing that Depp abused her physically even if she did not use his title,” she stated. 

Chinitz added that the circumstance will occur down to the cross-assessment of Read and irrespective of whether Depp’s legal staff can undermine her to the place that the jury will not credit score any part of her testimony. 

The trial in Fairfax County Circuit Court docket in Virginia went dim this week for a pre-scheduled crack but will resume Monday with Listened to back on the witness stand. Soon after her testimony wraps, her lawyers program to phone Depp back again to the stand as nicely as his ex-girlfriend, Ellen Barkin, and Amber’s sister, Whitney Heard, but not automatically in that buy, according to a resource close to her group.

Both equally sides have accused every other of bodily and verbal abuse and introduced witnesses, audio recordings and pictures that have bolstered their respective promises. 

Depp, who has referred to as Heard the abuser in their marriage, testified that she hurled a vodka bottle at him, severing the tip of his finger through an infamous Australia blowup in 2015.

“I consider they’ve equally weakened themselves in this lawsuit,” claimed Chinitz, who represented Tom Cruise and Michael Douglas in their respective divorces. “You do not get a favorable feeling about either of them.”

Heard’s countersuit, alleging that Depp defamed her by calling her abuse declare a hoax, suffers from comparable obstructions, reported legal and civil lawyer Mark Bederow.

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Heard’s group must confirm that Depp, not his law firm, was actually powering the disparaging comment.

“But even if a single celebration prevails, it will be a pyrrhic victory,” Bederow informed Fox Information Electronic. “Both equally of their reputations have been seriously weakened on the public phase.”