Generally, it’s easier to win libel lawsuits in the U.K. than in the U.S., since the latter has greater free-speech protections. But curiously this wasn’t so in the case of Depp v. Heard.
In 2020, a judge in the High Court in London ruled against the actor Johnny Depp in his libel claim against the British tabloid the Sun for calling him a “wife beater.” The judge found that of the 14 abuse accusations made by his ex-wife Amber Heard, twelve were “substantially true” and “proved to the civil standard.”
But on Wednesday, seven American jurors found that Heard defamed Depp by claiming to represent domestic-abuse survivors in a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post.
Some are arguing that this discrepancy demonstrates how jurors are more susceptible than judges to emotional manipulation.
“We find that DARVO [deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender] works very well with juries but almost never works with judges, who are trained to look at the evidence,” Mark Stephens, an international media lawyer, told the Post.
Okay, but weren’t the judge and jury looking at the same evidence?
“Essentially what you have got is a jury believing evidence that a British judge did not accept,” Stephens said.
No kidding.