Amber Heard&Johnny Depp verdict

[Miscfeminista]

Continuation of previous thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4552076-amber-heardjohnny-depp-trial?page=36&reply=117586863

Speculations on verdict, news related to it, insights into specifics of legal matters, opinions and impressions…let’s keep it going and see how verdict finds us >>>>>>>>>>

Blimey Misc I thinks that's a bit of a reach. That's a parents call not his and it's down to the Police to monitor and control the 'mob'.

Some people are putting a lot of store in an “independent jury” and I wonder if they’ve ever sat on a jury. I have, in a sexual assault case, and it completely destroyed my faith in the jury system and left me thinking I would never report and would struggle to encourage my DDs to report, a sexual assault. And that was with a “good” victim, DNA evidence and a defendant who offered no defence. It was a deeply distressing experience which has stayed with me for a long time.

And by distressing I don’t mean the case itself, which was probably one of the less awful ones to sit on, but the attitudes of other jurors towards the victim because she hadn’t behaved the way they imagined a victim should. I see a lot of parallels in people’s responses to Heard.

Chuck. God that's bloody awful, with DNA evidence too?! Was this recent?

Sorry don't have to answer if you don't want to.

Maybe I'm naive as I'm putting myself as a juror in this case.

Trouble is those jurors are all that's available. I still think that's better than one judges opinion only like in the UK (and his connections are a bit suspect) and Judge Penney could overrule the verdict if she felt the verdict was contrary to the evidence presented.

Well true it’s a reach in a sense that he paid for AH to be harassed online in the name of”global humiliation pledge”so why would he ever tell people to act decent, it’s exactly the effect he wanted

@ChuckBerrysBoots what were some of the things that those jurors with you said that shocked you most?

'Global humiliation pledge' he didn't need to do that, she has done that by herself over the last six weeks, sad to say.

If you want someone to act decently towards you then a good start would be not to haymaker them round the ear, mock them and laugh manically at them (amongst other things).

Well true it’s a reach in a sense that he paid for AH to be harassed online in the name of”global humiliation pledge”so why would he ever tell people to act decent, it’s exactly the effect he wanted

That does seem to be true. Look at this - it shows dozens of pro Depp twitter accounts making identical tweets:

twitter.com/cbouzy/status/1533053193843777537?s=20&t=Q7eRH3ANaGSRhAUKF4PNLA

A constant stream of “why didn’t she do this? Why didn’t she do that? I/my daughters wouldn’t have behaved like that so she must be lying. These kinds of things just don’t happen. Nobody behaves that way. Nobody just lets that happen. She shouldn’t have been where she was. She should have screamed. She should have shouted. She should have fought back. She should, she should, she should…” and the best of all “Oh but he’s such a young lad, I don’t think I could send him to prison.” One juror (a woman, incidentally) said immediately that they didn’t believe her, wouldn’t explain why, and nothing anyone could say (including detailed discussions/explanations of the DNA evidence) could change their mind. And this wasn’t a case where the defendant was saying she consented - he was saying it didn’t happen - despite the DNA evidence. We managed a majority verdict on one count which resulted in a custodial sentence, but not for the most serious offence. I hope the victim, who conducted herself impeccably and still wasn’t believed, got some solace from that.

@TiddyTidTwo within the last 5 years. At a time when there had been endless discussions in the press about consent in the wake of some high profile cases.

The thing is @Miscfeminista with the exception of the particularly obstinate juror, they all seemed to be thoroughly decent people which is what make it so stark. Nice people think that way. I came away wondering how we even achieve the current conviction rate for sexual offences to be honest.

That's really upsetting. I'm not sure why juries are even a thing tbh. Unqualified people going with their 'gut feeling'.

Because judges can be just as bad. Comments like "It can't be sex on Monday and Tuesday , rape on Thursday and then sex again on Saturday " in a case about marital rape.

I have sat in a jury and have faith in the system due to it - the evidence was clear and there wasn’t room for sexism (all people involved were men)

However since doing so have thought about what a sexual abuse case would be like.

The thing that undermined the defendant incidentally was lying under oath, and inconsistent testimonies

At that point even with all the complexity I’d say say jurors found the witness lacked credibility

But I was lucky I guess as it wasn’t harrowing in the way others experience- whether outright sexism or evidence

If you want a fair(er) trial then a cross section of society on a Jury panel is much better than just one (usually)white, (usually)privileged (usually)male Judge.

amp.theguardian.com/law/2020/jan/29/white-men-still-dominate-judiciary-says-justice-report

It is true if you get rid of juries you’re much less likely to have women, or lower incomes or different sections of society involved in the justice system

Also , a judge can be just as easily influenced by their own prejudices and stereotypes. Plus, it adds extra pressure and risk of being influenced by outside sources when they are the only ones responsible.

The failings we see are due to societal mysoginistic attitudes and conditioning in it's many forms. For example female jurors are more likely to change their minds from guilty to not guilty during deliberations(I know this contradicts PP's experiences, but there will always be outliers).

Miscfeminista · Today 02:13

This is so obvious it’s embarrassing. Yet beside that JD has audacity to walk around pretending he’s scared of a woman he was beating up and raping for years 🤮

I expect he eats babies and worships the devil too.

I can't work out whether you're just besotted with Amber or really, really hate Johnny for some obscure reason of your own.

You certainly seem prepared to criticise any woman, from Camille Vasquez to Dr Curry to Kate Moss that doesn't say what you want to hear.

At this point your devotion to Amber's cause is getting both ridiculous and embarrassing to watch. You really can't go around accusing men you don't know of being habitual rapists and wife beaters, especially when they have never been arrested or convicted of the charge and the only evidence that they have done anything like that comes from the word of someone whose honesty the vast majority of us can see is rather dubious. Even the UK judge rejected her rape claim and that was before all the extra evidence came out which casts doubt on almost everything she has claimed.

I simply don't get your unshakeable belief in her. I'm no fan of his but I really cannot understand how you can listen to the evidence on the tapes and presented in court and not see problems with her and her evidence.

Someone who is terrified of their attacker doesn't film him being violent to inanimate objects, change the position of the camera in the middle of it all and smile at the end when she's been caught filming. Someone who is only violent in self defence doesn't say they can't promise not to START physical fights. Someone who is regularly beaten black and blue doesn't mock her abuser for being a baby when she hits him back. They also show obvious signs of those beatings. A broken nose and two black eyes are impossible to hide with makeup.

I know there is no such thing as the perfect victim but Amber has behaved in a way which makes her not at all credible. Additional to that we have her previous arrest for hitting her ex-girlfriend and the evidence that she has ill treated her sister and hit her too. We have the reports of Jennifer Howell to support this as well as the footage from the reality show where they were talking about Amber hitting Whitney. Why doesn't Amber's reported violence against other women not concern you at all even if you discredit her possible (probable) violence against men?

The failings we see are due to societal mysoginistic attitudes and conditioning in it's many forms.

Yes, in fairness to my example, it wasn’t the jury system itself that was at fault, but the ingrained attitudes of some of the jurors, who certainly would never have described themselves as mysoginists. Equally we were lucky to have a person with a science background who was able to explain DNA evidence to those in the room
who weren’t au fait with the scientific language that had been used in court. Without that I’m not sure we would have secured any conviction. But it felt so luck-of-the-draw.

Anyway, it reaffirmed my commitment to not pursuing a life of crime as I don’t ever fancy finding myself on the receiving end of a jury trial!

MarshaBradyo · Today 10:24

The thing that undermined the defendant incidentally was lying under oath, and inconsistent testimonies

At that point even with all the complexity I’d say say jurors found the witness lacked credibility

But I was lucky I guess as it wasn’t harrowing in the way others experience- whether outright sexism or evidence

The simple lesson from that is don't lie in court. If you do and are caught doing so you have basically destroyed your own credibility and made everything you say hard to believe. You can't expect to win if you are a liar, especially a bad liar like Amber.

Wow, the abuse apologists are still defending their dear AH. The mind boggles. Thought this might have moved on by now. How sad.

I know this isn't aimed at me particularly but are you saying you don't believe those are bots - dozens of accounts with identical comments?

You say the UK judge rejected her rape claim - this is false FYI. It was confidential and accepted by the judge.

"Someone who is terrified of their attacker doesn't..." - How about we stop making blanket statements about victim behaviour? Or should we do the same for Depp? Someone who is being abused doesn't call their abuser a lesbian camp counsellor, doesn't yell "Don't fucking pretend to be authoritative with me", etc.

"Doesn't say they can't promise not to start physical fights" - Honestly I don't think any of us knows what we might do or say after years of abuse. Some victims do provoke or instigate a fight to get it 'over with'.

"Doesn't mock her abuser for being a baby"
Actually I just remembered something that might be illustrative. My dad, who actually only properly 'hit' me once but was incredibly verbally abusive, would use his stature to physically intimidate me all the time, trashed everything in my room, took me on a hair-raising drive where we could have both been killed, etc. On one occasion he was swinging a chair around at me (I remember there was a dent in the ceiling for years until my parents had some redecoration done), I was very very scared and there was nowhere I could go at the time, and I just stood there and yelled at back him that he was just an overgrown toddler - I can't remember what else but along those lines. And he did back down actually but then started threatening to throw himself out of the window 🙄. All of which is to say that you can be scared AND be angry and completely sick of someone's bullshit.

"A broken nose and two black eyes are impossible to hide with makeup." I'm sorry but this is factually inaccurate. Makeup can cover up tattoos and it can certainly cover bruises. Not all broken noses actually look that dramatic either.

WRT your claims about Jennifer Howell and about the past arrest. Obviously we know Tasya Van Ree has made a statement about that, so why should we assume there was abuse, any more than we disbelieve Kate Moss about the stairs? I have no idea how reliable Jennifer Howell is, but why are we assuming she's telling the truth about a situation she was one step removed from, but assuming all Amber's witnesses are liars (which they would have to be)? Whitney has said the reality show scene was nonsense and they were trying to create some drama and a storyline. If she does ever come out and say Amber abused her, I would absolutely support that but otherwise it's just malicious rumour IMO.

And why doesn't Depp’s violence against other men concern you even if you discredit his possible (probable) violence against Amber Heard? He's in court in a few weeks for an assault.

Bots are typically set up to fan culture wars, any culture wars. I seriously doubt it's Depp's PR team.

With hindsight, a better defence from Heard would have been 'We were fucking horrible to each other. Thank fuck we're not together anymore. Frankly, either of us could have written the article - but the statement that I was subjected to domestic abuse is still true, so Depp's defamation claim is not proven.'

I think she was foolish or poorly advised to take on the role of Victim Ambassador in the first place. She could/should have turned it down on the basis of the first two statements above.

I would never suggest that a jury system is perfect but the reality is that we are yet to come up with a better one.

A jury is the closest we can get to "society" making a decision on a particular case and set of facts.

Not every decision will be correct but judges make "wrong" decisions all the time which is how cases make their way up through the appeal system. The "winner" can change backwards and forwards several times during that process. It's not black and white.