Depp vs. Heard Trial Verdict: Top Lawyer Predicts Who Wins
KEY POINTS
- Both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard could lose their defamation trial, a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney says
- Lawyer Emily D. Baker suggested a detail in Heard's testimony may have opened a winning path for her ex-husband
- Jury deliberations on the case were scheduled to resume Tuesday
It is possible that neither Johnny Depp nor his ex-wife Amber Heard will win in their ongoing court trial, according to a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney.
"I don't think both can win, I think both can lose," lawyer Emily D. Baker said of Depp's $50 million defamation case against Heard during a recent episode of the "Not Skinny But Not Fat" podcast, according to 7News.com.au.
"The jury can find no one is liable, no one defamed no one, no one defamed anyone, no defamation at all. Everyone loses," the 44-year-old said.
Baker's comments come as a jury at the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia resumes deliberations on the case Tuesday.
While Baker said she initially believed it was "most possible" that both Depp and Heard would end up losing the case, she suggested that a path to winning may have been opened for the 58-year-old actor following Heard's confirmation that she retweeted the key Washington Post opinion piece that sparked the legal battle.
Heard's defense has been arguing over the course of the trial that the actress did not write the piece's headline, "Opinion Amber Heard: I spoke up about sexual violence and faced our culture's wrath. This has to change."
On the other hand, Depp's team argued that even if Heard didn’t write the headline, she retweeted it and said, "Today I published this op-ed in the Washington Post about the women who are channeling their rage about violence and inequity into political strength despite the price of coming forward," Baker noted.
As the retweet included the headline that Depp claims is defamatory, this may be the actor's "clearest path to victory," the lawyer suggested.
"So it has the headline in it and [Heard's] saying, 'I published this op-ed.' So I think the tweet is [Depp's legal team's] strongest case right now because she’s saying, 'I wrote this,' and she’s saying, 'I wrote this including the headline,'" Baker said.
"So my verdict is, if there’s a win, it’s that. I still think this jury could go with nobody wins, I still think this jury could hang. I never put that aside. I also don’t like betting on verdicts, I didn’t do that with my own verdicts," she added.
Baker has constantly been commenting online on Depp and Heard's "immensely wild" trial, which started on April 11.
The former deputy district attorney's streams on the case can sometimes draw 1 million live viewers, and her YouTube channel's subscriber count surpassed 500,000 last week, the Los Angeles Times reported.
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