What the A- list actress is arguing, could happen in lots of courtrooms across the country every day.

It is incredibly rare to be asked for identification proving who you are.

Amber Heard

Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp Verdict Thrown Into Chaos As Wrong Juror Seated In Virginia Trial, Amber Heard Says; Wants New Trial

EXCLUSIVE: If there wasn’t enough drama swirling around Johnny Depp’s win over Amber Heard in his multimillion-dollar defamation suit last month, things have turned judicially weird.

“Ms. Heard had a right to rely on the basic protection, as prescribed by the Virginia Code, that the jurors in this trial would be individuals who were actually summoned for jury duty,” says a partially redacted new filing Friday by the Aquaman star’s legal team (read it here).

“In this case, it appears that Juror No. 15 was not, in fact, the same individual as listed on the jury panel,” attorney Elaine Bredehoft adds in language similar to a previous filing of June 24. “Ms. Heard’s due process was therefore compromised. Under these circumstances, a mistrial should be declared, and a new trial ordered.”

Unlike the previous motion and memorandum placed in the Fairfax County courthouse docket late last month to dismiss the June 1 verdict and get a new trial, today’s supplemental memo has a lot more details on what could snatch victory from Depp in his long legal battle with his ex-wife.

According to the redacted filing, the summons for jury duty was sent out to a Virginia resident in April for the much-delayed $15 million defamation action Depp had set off in March 2019 against Heard for a 2018 Washington Post op-ed she penned on being the “public face” of domestic abuse. However, also according to today’s filing, it seems that there are two individuals residing at the same address with, at the very least, “the same last name” — one a 77-year-old and another a 52-year-old.

The former was the one summoned, but it looks like the latter was the one who showed up. “Thus, the 52-year-old [redacted] sitting on the jury for six weeks was never summoned for jury duty on April 11 and did not ‘appear in the list,’ as required,” Friday’s damning filing asserts.

Not noticed by officers or clerks of the court, the younger individual made it all the way to the jury without apparently ever being asked to produce any ID, or with perhaps fake ID, the filing implies. Additionally, it looks like someone filled out the required online information form either intentionally or accidentally to say that they were born in 1945. – Source


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