One of the seven jurors in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial spoke to ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Thursday. He described the subtle nuances in Heard’s behavior over the course of the six-week trial that convinced the jury she wasn’t being truthful.
Because he wished to remain anonymous, viewers were not shown his face, nor did they hear his voice.
What stood out to them was Heard’s ability to turn on the tears one minute and be totally fine the next. They also felt she spent too much time looking at them — which left them uncomfortable.
The juror said, “A lot of Amber’s story didn’t add up. The majority of the jury felt she was more the aggressor.”
“The crying, the facial expressions that she had, the staring at the jury. All of us were very uncomfortable.
“She would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. Some of us used the expression ‘crocodile tears.’ It didn’t seem natural.”
Referring to Depp, the juror said, “A lot of the jury felt what he was saying, at the end of the day, was more believable. He just seemed a little more real in terms of how he was responding to questions. His emotional state was very stable throughout.”
At the time of Heard’s divorce, she announced she would be donating her $7 million settlement to two charities. The jury was shown a video of Heard telling a talk show host in the U.K. that she had given all of the money away.
It turned out that she had donated some, but not all to charity. The juror said this was a “fiasco” for Heard.
Did you find Heard’s testimony to be credible?
The jury believed Depp and Heard were “both abusive to each other.”
“I don’t think that makes either of them right or wrong,” the juror explained. “But to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough or any evidence that really supported what she was saying.”
The juror said he didn’t believe Depp had hit the actress. The evidence wasn’t there.
Additional remarks from the juror were published on Good Morning America’s website.
The jurors were shown two pictures that allegedly showed bruising on Heard’s face. In one of the photos, her skin appeared redder than in the other. Depp’s attorneys suggested the photo had been edited, which the jury believed. The juror said, “Those were two different pictures. We couldn’t really tell which picture was real and which one was not.”
He didn’t view Heard’s attorneys favorably, saying they had “sharp elbows versus being sharp.”
“They would cut people off in cross because they wanted one specific answer without context. They were forcing people to just answer a very narrow question … which was obvious.”
“Some people said we were bribed. That’s not true. Social media did not impact us. We followed the evidence. We didn’t take into account anything outside [the courtroom]. We only looked at the evidence,” he told GMA. “They were very serious accusations and a lot of money involved. So we weren’t taking it lightly.”
He was asked by GMA if the celebrity of Depp and Heard made a difference in the jury’s decision. He replied, “None of us were really fans of either one of them.”
In the end, it just came down to credibility — or rather, Heard’s lack of it.
Heard was ordered to pay $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages to Depp. Fortunately for Heard, Virginia state law places a $350,000 cap on punitive damages.
Depp was ordered to pay $2 million to Heard in her $100 million countersuit. So she owes her former husband $8.35 million.
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