Amber Heard’s Attorney: Blame the Judge, Jury, and Johnny Depp’s Legal Team For the Verdict
The defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is over and done. But Heard’s attorney Elaine Bredehoft went on the record to say the legal issue is not over. And if anyone is looking for someone to point the finger at for the verdict, she has some suggestions.
According to Bredehoft, “things” were improperly allowed and disallowed, leading to Heard’s loss. So, an appeal is likely. And she blamed the judge, the jury, and her opposing counsel for the outcome of the trial.
But what did she say when confronted with the notion that jurors rejected the credibility of Heard’s claims? And that they did that based on the case presented by her legal team?
Amber Heard’s attorney thinks Judge Penney Azcarate created a ‘zoo’ by allowing cameras in the courtroom
While speaking to NBC’s TODAY, Bredehoft said she opposed cameras in the courtroom. “It’s like the Roman Colosseum, you know? How they viewed this whole case. I was against cameras in the courtroom and I went on record with that and argued against it because of the sensitive nature of this. But it made it a zoo,” she said.
That decision came from Judge Penney Azcarate, a former Marine who some observers call a “purist” for how clean she kept the court record.
According to The New York Times, the judge anticipated the public demand for details would create a circus around the trial. She said allowing cameras in the courtroom would make the courthouse safer. Her hope was fewer people would try to attend in person if they could watch a stream.
Furthermore, the courtroom is generally kept open to the public in civil matters in Virginia, where Depp sued. Ideally, those observers help keep court processes honest and hold judges accountable when needed.
But cameras weren’t Bredehoft’s only complaint. She mentioned “suppression” of further proof, and Azcarate oversaw the admission of evidence according to a state code.
Bredehoft suggested Azcarate disallowed evidence that helped Heard “win” in the United Kingdom, where she was a witness for The Sun. “We had an enormous amount of evidence that was suppressed in this case that was in the U.K. case,” she stated.
Amber Heard’s attorney feels the jury turned against Heard to appease the court of public opinion
Every jury is asked to rely exclusively on the facts and information provided to them in a case to reach a verdict. But Bredehoft said that didn’t happen in Depp and Heard’s trial. She suggested outside influences penetrated the jurors’ abilities to stay impartial.
“They went home every night. They have families. The families are on social media. We had a 10-day break in the middle because of the judicial conference. There’s no way they couldn’t have been influenced by it,” she said to TODAY.
Notably, jurors didn’t need to go on social media or talk to anyone outside the trial to know there were negative hashtags and trends associated with Heard. The Aquaman star‘s team introduced a witness who spoke with the jury about social media trends. That led to a discussion about the popularity of trending hashtags and phrases like “Amber Turd” and “Justice for Johnny Depp.”
TODAY host Savannah Guthrie asked Bredehoft about the possibility the jurors didn’t believe the case presented by Heard’s side. But she continued to blame other circumstances for the loss.
Amber Heard’s attorney said Johnny Depp’s legal team ‘demonized’ Heard and ‘confused’ the jury
In one statement, Bredehoft suggested Depp’s legal team and the judge kept the jury from making a clear-minded decision. “… She was demonized here,” the attorney argued. “A number of things were allowed in this court that should not have been allowed, and it caused the jury to be confused.”
But, it seems necessary to point out here that Bredehoft mimicked, or debatably mocked, Depp’s voice at one point in the trial. The legal team also referred to the Pirates of the Caribbean actor as “the monster,” including while giving their closing arguments. So, that kind of disparagement was not isolated to one side of the courtroom.
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