Weeks after she was discovered liable for defaming Johnny Depp and ordered to pay the actor thousands and thousands of {dollars}, Amber Heard has alleged that one of many jurors was not truly the individual summoned to be on the jury. Heard’s authorized group stated that the inclusion of the inaccurate juror violated her due course of rights and requested the decide to declare a mistrial.
The Friday submitting offers extra information about a declare Heard’s legal professionals made when asking the decide to throw out the decision final week. Her group requested the decide on the time to research “potential improper juror service,” The Associated Press reported, noting that in paperwork given to attorneys earlier than jury choice, the individual was listed as being born in 1945 — however public information confirmed the juror who confirmed as much as the trial was born in 1970.
The new doc, filed Friday by Heard’s authorized group, supplied new particulars on the alleged incident. A 77-year-old was randomly chosen for jury duty, the doc stated — however as an alternative, a 52-year-old with the identical final title who apparently lives on the similar deal with got here to the court docket and served as a juror all through the trial. Their names have been redacted in the doc.
The doc didn’t present any purpose for why this allegedly occurred or say how the scenario was uncovered.
The legal professionals stated Fairfax County has a number of measures in place — together with requiring jurors to submit their zip code and delivery date — to make sure the individual summoned for jury duty is the one that truly seems. But in some way, in accordance with the doc, these measures did not catch that the improper individual was current on the trial.
“Those safeguards are in place and relied upon by the parties to verify the identity of the correct juror, to ensure due process and a fair trial for all litigants,” the doc stated. “When these safeguards are circumvented or not followed, as appears to be the case here, the right to a jury trial and due process are undermined and compromised.”
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Heard’s legal professionals additionally stated final week that the decide ought to throw out the decision as a result of the quantity awarded to Depp — $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages — was “excessive” and “indefensible,” the AP reported.
The weeks-long trial ended in early June with the jury discovering that Heard defamed Depp in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed, and Depp was liable for his legal professional calling her claims a hoax in a assertion to the Daily Mail. Depp was awarded $15 million — although he might solely gather $10.35 million as a result of state limits on punitive damages — and Heard was awarded $2 million.
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