Authorized specialists say Johnny Depp’s attorneys got a present when his bombshell defamation trial in opposition to ex-wife Amber Heard went on hiatus this week.
However some additionally famous the break might give the Heard’s aspect a lift, as jurors are left with a number of days to chew on her harrowing testimony.
With out a right away cross-examination to challenger her credibility, Heard’s story is left “marinating of their minds, and perhaps solidifying that … that is what actually occurred and that is the reality,” New York based mostly household legislation and divorce lawyer Sandra Radna mentioned Monday.
“Perhaps it doesn’t matter what Johnny Depp’s staff does afterwards, it may well’t change them,” Radna mentioned concerning the jurors, “as a result of now they’ve they’ve sat with that for every week.”
Skilled trial marketing consultant Jill Huntley Taylor, nonetheless, mentioned the hole will give Depp’s attorneys “loads of time” to pour over Heard’s testimony and “actually meticulously plan their cross-examination of her.”
“I do assume there’s a actual strategic benefit” to that, Huntley Taylor instructed The Submit.
The trial was paused on Could 5, after Heard’s second day on the stand, when she described a few of the excessive abuse she allegedly suffered at Depp’s palms.
Her testimony will resume Could 16, when Choose Penney Azcarate returns from a pre-scheduled convention.
Within the meantime, Depp’s attorneys will have the ability to spend the week “discovering issues to ask that may discredit her testimony,” California leisure lawyer Mitra Ahouraian mentioned.
“Johnny’s staff goes to be pivoting based mostly on what they heard in her testimony,” Ahouraian instructed The Submit.
A supply near Depp instructed The Submit that his attorneys “positively see it as a bonus to have every week and a half to organize for cross-examination and analyze Ms. Heard’s direct examination testimony up to now.”
Nonetheless, lawyer to the celebrities Jeffrey Movit of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp mentioned {that a} authorized staff “usually needs to current their full case with out interruption moderately than have it chopped up and divided and unfold out over time.”
“Whereas the jury has time to ruminate on Ms. Heard’s testimony they could overlook parts of it,” Movit famous. “Furthermore, her testimony shall be considerably separated in time from that of the opposite witnesses in assist of her case.”
Depp, 58, is suing Heard, 36, for $50 million for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she wrote within the Washington Submit by which she described herself as “a public determine representing home abuse.”
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star wasn’t named within the piece, however he says it nonetheless ruined his popularity, broken his profession and value him tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in work.
Heard’s attorneys aren’t allowed to seek the advice of with the actress this week since she’s nonetheless on the stand, one thing Huntley Taylor, the trial marketing consultant, described as a “problem for them and for her.”
The jury, which isn’t sequestered, can be in danger at listening to about this case of their week off given how a lot consideration it’s obtained, the specialists warned.
Backside line, Radna mentioned, “you by no means know what’s going by means of jurors’ heads.”
Extra reporting by Elizabeth Rosner.
