whatsoever. okay. thank you. it sound like they re bringing in the jury right now. the jury is coming in and getting situated and then we are waiting. joey, are we going to hear guilty or not guilty? are we going to hear that? this is a civil trial. it s assessed in terms of liability or not liable. liable or not liable. if you re liable you get to the issue of damages which are monetary. if not liable, there s nothing further to discuss. whether amber heard is liable or not liable. first johnny, are you defaming johnny depp and is johnny depp liable to amber heard. the standard of proof is not reasonable doubt. it s a preponderance of the evidence meaning is more likely or not. let s go back into the courtroom. can i have the attorneys roach for a moment. they re discussing something, and we done know what it is, and that s why they do it at side bar. i just want to mention there are seven members on this jury. it s not like a criminal trial. we know that there a
statement. damages have to be filled in. yeah, that s what i heard, and just to make the distinction as lonnie brilliantly explained, there s a couple of portions of damages, compensatory and punitive. compens compensatory damages are designed to make you whole, damages lost that are attributable to defamation. someone does something to you, you can pinpoint the specific amount. that s designed to compensate you. punitive damages are designed to punish you, to say what you did is wrong, and i m going to show how wrong it is by putting as many zeros as i can. before we go on or get too excited about that, if she says hey, you have it fill in the number amount, she being the judge, there was an assessment as to liability, we ve seen cases where you can be liable and the amount can be a dollar. and in fact, the judge just said that. lonnie, does this mean that we think that amber is going to be liable for damages or johnny depp or both? well, i don t know which side, but it s very
the jury has not returned. i want to continue our conversation with jean casarez, lonnie coombs and joey jackson. the judge said when you find for a defamatory statement, you have to determine what the damages are, even if it s as little as a dollar: the judge is back. she s likely going to call the jury back in. let s listen in. we re ready for the jury. they re waiting still for the jury to come in. that shouldn t take very long. hopefully they have the paperwork filled out properly this time. lonnie, how fertile is this period for an appeal, 15 minutes to figure out what the number is? well, look, jury instructions are very difficult to follow and verdict forms or finding instruction forms can be very difficult to fill out.
to the issue of appeal because you can throw out a number of figures as this jury did, but that will go through a whole bunch of machinations of appeals and even during the appeals, settlements, right, and when you look at that, the figure, right, it s a high figure, $10 million, it goes to whether or not she ll have the ability to pay. in the event she doesn t, there s all kinds of attachments and things you could ultimately do. one other issue, quickly, i want to go back to lonnie s point with respect to the inconsistency of the verdict, on the one hand, the second statement which the jury apparently credited, right, as it relates to amber heard saying johnny depp defamed me, said that this was a hoax. so how do you on the one hand as a jury credit a statement saying that, you know, they lied, that as johnny depp and his team when they called this a hoax, but on the other hand, you credit the fact that he defamed her, meaning amber heard defamed johnny depp, it seems so inconsistent.
evidence that was exclusive, and sad that she lost this case. so let s go over the numbers again. remember that johnny depp sued his ex-wife for $50 million. the jury awarded him $10 million in compensatory damages. the award was 5 million for punitive damages. however, that s capped at 350,000 in the state of virginia. the counter suit, $100 million. amber heard sued her ex-husband for 100 million, was awarded 2 million in compensatory damages. $0 in punitive damages, as we re taking this round of first reactions, a live look outside the courthouse, crowds who, again, as i said have been fascinated with this trial. lonnie, your first thoughts on what we saw in the courtroom. once again, some surprise. some shock because legally these are very difficult cases to win.