Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard Trial Update

Ahoy! I’m captain Danny Karon, your Lovable Lawyer, here with your “shot across the bow” of legal wellness. By now we’ve all heard about Johnny Depp’s $50 million lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard over her 2018 Washington Post op-ed, where she wrote about surviving domestic abuse. Her op-ed didn’t name Depp but he says the clear implication was that he’s a domestic abuser. For her part, she countersued for a $100 million accusing him of orchestrating a smear campaign. Now, trial began a few weeks ago and to win, Depp needs to prove four elements or four points by what’s called the preponderance of the evidence. What’s that mean? Well let’s say Depp has a scale in court. He needs to only convince the jury by just a smidge past 50% that he’s right. Now you see a civil trial is different from a criminal trial where the prosecution has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. You hear that on TV all the time, like on Law and Order. Proving something beyond a reasonable doubt, that means tipping the scales big time. Here’s what Depp needs to prove by a preponderance of the evidence to win:

• That Heard made a false statement purporting to be fact,
• that she published or communicated it to a third person,
• that she was negligent, which really means basically she was careless, and
• that he suffered some sort of harm from her having done all this.

Now Depp has finished testifying but Heard just started and when the proof is all in and the jury “lowers the boom,” I’ll be here to tell you who makes out with the “booty.”

If you’d like to learn more about legal wellness, please subscribe to my YouTube channel or weigh anchor to yourlovablelawyer.com. Until next time, I’m Danny Karon, your Lovable Lawyer.