Amber Heard’s lawyers are asking the court to declare a ‘mistrial’ after, amid claims of a juror ‘error’.
Last month June, the 36-year-old Aquaman 2 star was found by a unanimous seven-person jury in Fairfax, Virginia, to have defamed her Pirates Of The Caribbean actor ex-husband in a Washington Post article in which she claimed she was a victim of domestic abuse.
While Depp wasn’t named in the article, his lawyers argued the piece was defamatory against the actor and the court awarded him $15million (£12m) in compensatory and punitive damages.
Heard won one count of her $100m (£83m) countersuit, and was given damages of $2m (£1.6m), meaning she has to pay the 59-year-old $8m (£6.6m).
However, afterwith the jury’s credibility, now Heard’s lawyers are alleging that the wrong juror was seated at the trial.
Deadline reported that a 77-year-old individual was called up for jury duty but appears to live at the same address as a 52-year-old with ‘the same surname’, who was the juror actually seated throughout the trial.
The filing from Heard’s team reads: ‘Ms. Heard had a right to rely on the basic protection, as prescribed by the Virginia Code, that the jurors in this trial would be individuals who were actually summoned for jury duty.
‘In this case, it appears that Juror No. 15 was not, in fact, the same individual as listed on the jury panel. Thus, the 52-year-old- (redacted) sitting on the jury for six weeks was never summoned for jury duty on April 11 and did not ‘appear in the list,’ as required.’
The filing went on to claim that as a result of the alleged mistake, the ‘due process’ of Heard had been ‘compromised’ and therefore claimed that a mistrial should be declared, which would render the initial trial and its outcome invalid.
It continued: ‘Ms. Heard’s due process was therefore compromised. Under these circumstances, a mistrial should be declared, and a new trial ordered.’
The news comes just days after Heard’s team also alleged that Depp was not entitled to any damages he was awarded because ‘there is no evidence of damage to Mr. Depp’s reputation caused by Mrs. Heard’s Op-Ed’.
Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft previously confirmed that they would be appealing the decision, and said that the Justice League actress was unable to pay the $8m awarded to her former partner.
