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A new request for a retrial in Amber Heard's defamation case against Johnny Depp has been lodged by her attorneys.
Amber Heard wants the defamation trial against her by Johnny Depp to be ruled as a mistrial because she claims the wrong juror appeared.
Heard's attorneys contend that she is entitled to a mistrial "based on newly found facts and evidence that Juror No. 15 was not the individual called for jury service on April 11, 2022," according to paperwork submitted to the Circuit Court of Fairfax County on Friday.
Amber Heard Alleges Wrong Person Served as Juror in Defamation Trial
According to the papers, the jury member was 77 years old at the time and lived at the same home as a person who was 52 years old. The two jurors chosen by Fairfax County are local residents who are registered to vote, and information from their voter registration includes their names, birthdays, and addresses.
The younger individual, not the elder one who was really called, according to Heard's defense team, was a juror throughout the six-week trial. According to the actress' attorneys, she was not provided with "due process," thus she is requesting that a mistrial be declared and a new trial be conducted.
According to PEOPLE, the appeal comes one week after Heard's attorney requested that the decision be completely overturned. The 'Aquaman' actress' legal team claimed that the decision was not adequately supported by the facts in a 43-page document that was submitted to a Virginia court on July 2.
The filings state that, even though the 77-year-old was called for jury service, it was the 52-year-old who really turned up. Anyone summoned to jury service in Fairfax County is required to complete an online questionnaire with their personal information and birthdate as a security measure to confirm their identification, according to Heard's team.
Although Virginia law restricts punitive damages at $350,000, the seven-person jury gave Johnny Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Amber Heard's countersuit against her ex-husband resulted in a $2 million settlement, as per NY Post.
Amber Heard'a Lawyer Claims Johnny Depp' Settlement Fee Is "Excessive"
After the actress' legal team claimed on July 1 that the evidence produced during the six-week hearing did not support the judgment at trial, a filing was made on Friday. The July 1 discussed the "wrong" Juror 15 issue, but it did not go into as much depth as the Friday document, Daily Mail reported.
Additionally, Heard's attorneys argued last week that the judge ought to overturn the verdict because the $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive penalties that were given to Johnny Depp were "excessive and indefensible."
The information was released just days after Heard's attorneys again requested a new trial, arguing that the first verdict had not been backed by sufficient evidence. Depp filed a lawsuit against Heard, his ex-wife, over a piece she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018 about her experiences as a victim of domestic violence, which according to his attorneys unjustly implicated him in the assault.
Per Sky News, Depp called his ex-charges wife's of domestic abuse "heinous and unsettling," and he denied assaulting Heard. Heard argued that the "larger cultural discourse" surrounding the #MeToo movement at the time, not her ex-husband, was the subject of her essay.
The trial concluded on June 1 after six weeks of testimony, with the jury determining that the article was defamatory of Depp and awarding him $10.35 million in damages. Heard did succeed in proving that one of Depp's lawyers had defamed her by calling her claims "an abuse hoax" intended to capitalize on the #MeToo movement in one count of her countersuit.
Related Article: [Report] Amber Heard Meets Johnny Depp in Private To Convince the Actor To Reduce $10 Million Settlement After Losing in Court Battle
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