The Johnny Depp–Amber Heard Verdict Is Chilling | The New Yorker 

"And yet she lost. She lost despite vile text messages from Depp, spinning out violent fantasies of rape and murder. She lost despite photograph after photograph of cuts, bruises, and swelling. She lost despite audio recordings of Depp verbally abusing her. She lost despite her sister, multiple friends, a makeup artist, and a couples counsellor attesting to seeing her injuries. And she lost despite facing the jury and recounting graphic, painful episodes of alleged physical and sexual violence.

Heard also lost because her legal team could not catch a break. They did not succeed in moving the case from Virginia, where Depp filed suit and where the Post’s servers are situated, to California, where Depp and Heard reside, where much of their relationship unfolded, and where legal protections (known as anti-SLAPP laws) for people who speak up on matters of public interest—such as preventing domestic violence—are significantly stronger than in Virginia. They could not get the case dismissed after the High Court in London, in 2020, ruled against Depp in his libel claim against the tabloid the Sun, which called him a “wife beater”; the judge in that case found that twelve of Heard’s fourteen abuse accusations as presented in court were proven to be “substantially true.” They could not exclude from the jury pool a man who read out the following text from his wife: “Amber is psychotic. If a man says a woman beat him, they never believe him.” They could not present evidence in Heard’s favor that the judge, Penney Azcarate, ruled out as hearsay, including testimony from seven medical professionals that Heard had reported contemporaneous episodes of abuse to them and a series of text messages from one of Depp’s employees, Stephen Deuters, in which Deuters appears to acknowledge that Depp physically harmed Heard on an airplane. (“When I told him he kicked you, he cried.”)

But the two most crucial strikes against Heard may have been that Azcarate permitted cameras in the courtroom and did not sequester the jury—a perfect one-two for Depp’s online brand of asymmetrical warfare. Trials are not often live-streamed in Virginia; that one centered on allegations of domestic abuse, including sexual assault, was televised is downright shocking. (Certain passages of Heard’s testimony in the U.K. case were kept confidential even in the final ruling; in the U.S., those details, as recounted by Heard in Virginia, were made available on YouTube in perpetuity.) The trial’s live stream provided hours of raw material for the fancams, TikTok lip-synchs, and cheapo animations that the pro-Depp legions used to saturate every corner of digital space. “Remember tonight do not do any outside research,” Azcarate would often admonish the jury when they took a break, revealing a naïveté about the inexorable seepage of the #JusticeForJohnny movement into every social-media feed. To “research” the case only required glancing at TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram, where Heard was cast as the delusional harpy and Depp as the lovable rogue."

Wow. Just fucking wow.

Unbelievable, just unbelievable.

Cameras should never have been permitted, did they not learn their lesson from the OJ trial. Just ugh, and also they should have sequestered the jury,

Agree. Team Heard tried to stop the cameras, but I guess that didn't fit with the "global humiliation" goal. I think it also bears mentioning that even if, by some strange miracle, a juror really did go through a media blackout for the entire month that this went on, did they not have to pass through the screaming hordes of fangirls on their way to and from the building every day? ("Here's some sleeping bags and a freezer full of pizza rolls, you live right here in this internetless courthouse until this is over." That would've sped it up.)

I knew most of this, but the fact that the judge threw out "testimony from seven medical professionals that Heard had reported contemporaneous episodes of abuse to them" seems exceptionally insane to me.

Yes, at least the jurors wouldn't have to face all of his supporters with the llamas. It would have at least helped. Also like you said being sequestered would have speed up the process.

I still can't get over that fact, that testimony should have been allowed. Just so unbelievable on so many levels.