Johnny Depp's Lawyers Believe The Actor Did Not Get A Fair Trial

Johnny Depp’s lawyers have told the Court of Appeals that the actor did not get a “fair trial” on his libel case against the U.K. media outlet The Sun. The actor filed a lawsuit against the publication for calling him a “wife-beater” and suffered a crushing defeat after an explosive trial that took place over the summer.

Depp’s attorney David Sherborne requested the panel to “set aside the judgment and order a new trial” after London High Court Judge Andrew Nicol said in his ruling that the publication's headline was “substantially true” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star regularly hit Amber Heard, The Guardian first reported.

In the court papers, Depp’s team of lawyers stated that Judge Nicol’s ruling was “manifestly unsafe.” Sherborne also criticized Nicol for failing to take any “adequate analysis” of Heard’s inconsistent testimony.

“[Nicol] concluded that the appellant was guilty of serious physical assaults without taking account of or even acknowledging that Ms. Heard had been untruthful in her evidence, without testing her account against the documentary evidence and the evidence of other witnesses, and without making any findings that he disbelieved those witnesse,” The Guardian quoted Sherborne, as saying.

“His uncritical acceptance of her account of events is manifestly unsafe,” Sherborne added.

The attorney called it a “very public judgment reached by a single judge, making devastating findings of extremely serious criminal offenses” with “wide-ranging implications for the public at large, particularly victims, or those wrongly accused, of alleged domestic abuse,” per the court papers.

Sherborne noted that it is important to have an effective appeal process.

“The judge failed to properly assess her credibility by reference to documentary evidence, photographs, recordings, or otherwise,” Sherborne stated in the court papers.

After he lost the case, Warner Bros. asked the actor to resign from the "Fantastic Beasts” franchise. Depp then announced that he has agreed to step down from the role and assured his followers that he will continue his legal fight.

“I wish to let you know that I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in ‘Fantastic Beasts‘ and I have respected and agreed to that request,” Depp wrote on the image-sharing platform.

Mads Mikkelsen will now portray the character of Grindelwald in the upcoming “Fantastic Beasts” movie.