LIVE: Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard Appeal Date & Legal Drama, Case Is Far From Over

LIVE: Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard Appeal Date & Legal Drama, Case Is Far From Over

A jury may have come back with a victory for Johnny Depp in his defamation suit against ex-wife Amber Heard, but the legal drama is far from over. Heard’s lawyers have said that she will appeal the decision, a process that will likely take years. TIME spoke to experts about what happens next in the case, Heard’s chances of winning an appeal, and how far this legal fight could go.

First, a bit of background on the case itself. Depp had sued Heard over a Washington Post op-ed published in 2018, in which Heard called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Heard never named Depp as her abuser. Still, Depp claimed that the opinion piece hurt his career. Heard then countersued, claiming that Depp’s attorney Adam Waldman, as an agent of Depp, defamed her by calling her allegations “a hoax”

In the U.S. case, the jury handed down awards to both Heard and Depp. They found that Heard defamed Depp with “malicious” intent and awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Judge Penney Azcarate then reduced the punitive damages to Virginia’s statutory cap of $350,000. But the jury also awarded Heard $2 million in compensatory damages on her countersuit. The verdict has left many confused since awarding damages to Depp would suggest that they believed the Pirates of the Caribbean star when he said Heard lied about the abuse she alleged, but awarding money to Heard contradictorily suggests they believed her claims of abuse were not, in fact, “a hoax.”

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