Amber Heard's team claim jurors weren't properly vetted in her trial against Johnny Depp
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As stated almost immediately after the verdict was delivered, Amber Heard's legal team have launched their appeal to have the ruling of her defamation case against ex-husband Johnny Depp overthrown – and are citing issues with the jury as part of their argument.
In their motion to set aside the verdict filing, Heard's team (including lawyer Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, who has been vocal about her dismay in the outcome of the trial) have said they believe the seven-person civil jury was not thoroughly scrutinised prior, urging the Court to "investigate whether Juror 15 properly served on the jury".
The motion states that there has been some confusion over Juror 15's birthdate, alleging that "on the juror panel list sent to counsel before voir dire, the Court noted that the individual who would later be designated Juror 15 had a birth year of 1945 [...] however Juror 15 was clearly born later than 1945 [...] Publicly available information demonstrates that he appears to have been born in 1970". Heard's legal team are hoping this alleged discrepancy can raise questions over the suitability of the jury panel as a whole.
Continuing on, the filing also adds that should Juror 15 not in fact be the same individual "on the venire, or that the Court's Clerk office did not verify his identity, Ms Heard's due process was compromised".
The motion also argues that the case relied on flawed logic, arguing that Depp's claims "proceeded solely on a defamation by implication theory, abandoning any claims that Ms Heard’s statements were actually false".
In response to the filing, a member of Johnny Depp's legal team, Ben Chew, said [via Courthouse News] that Heard's appeal was "what we expected, just longer, no more substantive".
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