Thread by @LuciaOC_

Another huge day in court yesterday. Here’s what happened:

#DeppHeardTrial #JohnnyDeppVsAmberHeardTrial #DeppvHeard #deppvsheardtrial

Amber Heard returned to the stand. Her lawyers asked her how this trial has affected her, and tbh it was heartbreaking. I know people are saying that they don’t find her emotion credible but personally I don’t see that; I see a very distressed person.

AH was asked about the mockery and harassment she has received from JD fans. She says she gets “thousands” of death threats.

“People want to put my baby in the microwave, and they tell me so.” She also talked about being harassed by JD fans outside the courthouse.

She addressed criticisms by saying: "I'm not a saint, I'm not trying to present myself as one.”

"And perhaps it's easy to forget that - I am a human being. And even though Johnny promised that I deserve this and promised he'd do this, I don't deserve this. I want to move on."

Referencing JD’s courtroom manner, she said: "I'm not sitting in this courtroom snickering, I'm not sitting in this courtroom laughing. I'm not smiling and making snide jokes. I'm not. This is horrible. This is painful and this is humiliating for any human being to go through.”

She spoke about the everyday effects of her trauma (probably in response to Dr Curry’s “people with real PTSD are housebound” claims): she said that she suffers panic attacks, that her friends and intimate partners know not to surprise her, have rules around how to touch her.

Heard then said: “I have the right to tell my story… I hope to get my voice back."

This, of course, goes to the question at the heart of this case. #JohnnyDeppVsAmberHeard

Vasquez’s cross was extremely fiery. Lots of people are talking about the moment when AH was describing JD’s power over her and she said “that’s why I wrote the op-ed”. I did a thread yesterday about why that’s not the gotcha moment people think it is:

https://twitter.com/LuciaOC_/status/1529869028533075971?s=20&t=dVUv0ZW6Ab5oXko8eFSEjw

Vasquez said: "Your lies have been exposed to the world multiple times?"

AH replied: "I haven't lied about anything."

Vasquez pushed her on the testimony from Morgan Knight from Hicksville, which contradicts her claims that the trailer was “trashed” during the stay. AH said “I don’t recognize that guy”, and said that a lot of people have “come out of the woodwork” to be “part of the Johnny show”

This is when she referenced writing the op-ed about JD.

"I know how many people will come out and say whatever for him. That's his power. That's why I wrote that op-ed. He is a very powerful man."

Vasquez also pushed her on the testimony from the TMZ reporter, who testified that he had been tipped off that AH would be at the courthouse the day she got her TRO.

“You alerted TMZ you'd be filing? No I did not…What survivor of domestic violence wants that?”

Vasquez also pushed her on the fact that she referenced the rumour that JD pushed Kate Moss down the stairs.

“You didn’t expect Kate Moss to show up and testify that that never happened, did you?”

AH replied: “Everybody who was around in the 90s and early aughts knew that rumor. I had heard that rumor from multiple people. Of course that's what flashed through my head when my violent husband not only swung for me but all of a sudden swung for my sister.”

She continued: “Of course I thought of that. I did not expect her to show up or expect her to show up, it did not matter, it did not change what I thought on the stairs when I thought he was going to kill my sister.”

Heard’s team called Julian Ackert to rebut claims by Neumeister that photos of AH’s bruises were edited.

Ackert pointed out that the differences in metadata that Neumeister pointed to can happen when a photo is resized, for example when you email it from a phone to a laptop.

“Based on the metadata that I have reviewed of the specific photographs I have reviewed, I can confirm that those are authentic, original photographs for the ones that Neumeister identified,” Ackert said.

As with all these data experts, this wasn’t the clearest testimony and was confusing at times. I guess the jury will just have to review all the expert evidence on this very closely during deliberations and decide what they think about the photos.

Back to the battle of Hughes v Curry:

Dr Hughes returned to the stand to refute Dr Curry’s rebuttal of her testimony. Importantly, she ardently refuted Dr Curry’s claim that PTSD renders all sufferers housebound/not able to function.

She explained that PTSD is a spectrum – the top score is 80, AH scored 28 – and that only right at the top of that scale would you expect to see what Dr Curry described. She explained that many PTSD sufferers have to, and do, carry out daily functions alongside their symptoms.

Hughes also added that she did, in fact, find functional impairment due to AH’s PTSD symptoms during the assessment.

Hughes defended herself against Curry’s claims that her methodology was improper. She said she used a “standard forensic procedure”. “There are three sets of tests that we use as forensic psychologists and I think that’s where it seems that Dr Curry seems confused”

On cross, we returned to the issues in her last cross, about the fact that she diagnosed AH with PTSD before administering the “gold standard” CAPS 5 test. Hughes admitted this.

We also returned to the issue that one of the tests refers to violence “within the last year”, but that Hughes told AH to orient her answers towards the relationship with JD, which was more than a year before. Hughes admitted this also.

For JD's case, we had another hand surgeon (and yet another Richard!!)

Dr Richard Gilbert testified that he believed JD's finger injury could have been sustained the way JD described, i.e. by AH throwing a bottle at him. He said the tissue damage was consistent with laceration.

He also testified that it doesn't matter that there was no glass in JD's wound, because thick glass (such as that used in vodka bottles) breaks into large pieces, it doesn't shatter into small fragments. This makes a lot of sense and seems right to me.

He also testified that a vodka bottle was enough force, when thrown as JD describes, to cause the "crush injury" that JD suffered.

When I say this, I mean it's not a "gotcha" moment from a legal perspective in terms of proving defamation. It does, of course, go to her credibility as a witness, because she has previously testified, or at least implied, that the op-ed wasn't about JD specifically.