Thread by @LuciaOC_

I'm seeing a lot of people say that because Heard mentioned on the stand that the op-ed was about Depp's power, that this is an admission that the op-ed is about him and is enough to prove malice, and therefore he wins. That's not right. An explainer:

#JohnnyDeppVsAmberHeard

I see this mistake a lot so I think it's important to clarify how the law works here. Malice on its own is not enough to prove defamation; it's a secondary question for the jury. The first question is whether or not the statements in the op-ed were "false".

So, first the jury has to decide if the statements were false. If they are not convinced that the statements were false, malice and intent do not factor into the question AT ALL. Substantially true statements cannot be defamatory even if made with the world's most evil intentions

So, the question of malice only comes up later in the jury's analysis if they make it past the first test, i.e. that they believe she was *not* a victim of domestic abuse.

Then they have to decide if she made the statements knowing they were false, and with actual malice.

I didn't write the law, and I'm not saying that the jury will necessarily find that the statements in the op-ed were true. I'm just saying that, legally, the first and most important question is: is it true to say that Amber Heard was a victim of domestic abuse by Johnny Depp?

Everything else — including malice, her subjective intentions in publishing the op-ed, whether she wanted publicity, what she knew about who leaked the video, etc — is secondary.