Advertisement
Ms Heard’s lawyers tried to convince the jury that while the defamation trial focused on lurid details of alleged spousal abuse, Mr Depp’s lawsuit was ultimately about what was called “a piece of paper”. called.
His case centered on Ms. Heard’s 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post, headlined: “I spoke out against sexual violence – and faced the wrath of our culture.” That has to change.” The article, which didn’t mention Mr. Depp’s name, was bylined by Ms. Heard, but there were many more people involved in the article.
Early drafts of the commentary were prepared by the communications department of the American Civil Liberties Union and refined through emails with Ms. Heard’s attorneys, said ACLU general counsel Terence Dougherty. Shortly before the comment was published, Ms. Heard was named an ACLU ambassador with a focus on women’s rights and gender-based violence.
During video testimony played to the jury at trial, an attorney for Mr. Depp read emails from the ACLU explaining how the comment came about. An email from a communications staffer suggested that Ms. Heard should write an article about how victims of gender-based violence “have become less safe under Trump and how people can take action,” noting that Ms. Heard could include her personal Story.
Another ACLU employee sent a first draft of the comment to Ms. Heard, and during the editing process with her attorneys, the mention of her marriage and the successful application for a restraining order were excised, Mr. Dougherty testified. Ms Heard ended up describing herself in the comment as a “public figure who advocates domestic violence” – a phrase at the heart of Mr Depp’s lawsuit.
In an email from one ACLU staffer to another, which one of Mr Depp’s lawyers read during Mr Dougherty’s questioning, the staffer noted that Ms Heard’s lawyers “had taken out some of the things that were really powerful.” had done”.
“I think that Amber’s contributions to the portion of the op-ed that talks about personal experiences are part of what gave rise to the view that this was a strong op-ed,” Mr. Dougherty testified.
Mr. Dougherty said the commentary’s release would be timed to coincide with the release of the film Aquaman, in which Ms. Heard starred. Ms. Heard said that timing was not to promote Aquaman, but to use the film to further the issues discussed in the article, including advocating a strengthened anti-violence law against women and anti-Trump policies. Government to assess sexual assault on college campuses.
The founding principles of the ACLU were free speech and civil liberties, but in recent years it has become more involved in progressive causes and fueled internal tensions over whether it has strayed from its original focus on First Amendment issues.
Lawyers for Ms Heard argued that Ms Heard had the right to speak out about her experience of spousal abuse and that there was no dispute that she became a “public figure representing domestic violence” in 2016 when she was granted an injunction against Mr Heard. Depp after reporting attacks by him to a court.
Mr Depp’s lawyers claimed that the article contained clear allusions to Ms Heard’s previous allegations – which Mr Depp denied – and that they were central to the piece’s relevance. The three parts of the comment at issue in the defamation case included the headline, which Ms. Heard and the ACLU said they were not involved with; the statement that she was a “public figure representing domestic violence”; and a later passage on “how institutions protect men accused of abuse”.
“The ACLU and Ms. Heard conspired to make it very clear that these three statements pertain to Mr. Depp because no one else was interested in the article,” Mr. Depp’s attorney, Benjamin Chew, argued Court.
The ACLU was not named as a defendant in the case.
After being awarded a $7 million payment in her divorce settlement with Mr Depp, Ms Heard pledged half of the money to the ACLU. Mr Depp’s lawyers have attempted to undermine Ms Heard’s credibility by showing that she had paid a fraction of the $3.5 million she had pledged to the ACLU, Mr Dougherty testified that Ms Heard stopped making payments because she ran into financial difficulties, which Ms Heard said were the result of Mr Depp’s legal proceedings against her.
