LogFAQs > #964801762

DAY 14

Big day today, but we start with the cross of Dr. Hughes. You may remember me saying I thought this would be huge... but...it was fine, and it should have been a hell of a lot better than it was. They got to points but never really drilled them in entirely. I have a theory why though.

But they open it with questioning about how Dr. Hughes is horribly biased against men in her studies and descriptions. Pointed out her pronouns she used for it, then pointed out she has never defending a male in a domestic abuse case and has only ever determined a woman has been a victim and never the abuser. She went "No, that's not right! I also defended young boys who were abused by adults and once I defended a male who was an abuser in a homosexual relationship!" Like, come on. This was easily the strongest part of this cross. It went down from there. They also used powerpoints she's presented about defending women who killed their partners which was whatever too.

Worth noting is that suddenly today she has amazing memory and doesn't need to be looking at her notes anymore.

He questioned the fact that Dr. Hughes claimed that Amber's therapists didn't diagnose any mental disorders and pointed out that they don't actually diagnose any and she went "Well they told me that there weren't any I should look for!"

Another good point was when he pulled up the giant knife that Amber got Johnny that said "Until Death" on it in Spanish, and then asked if a woman who was afraid that she would get murdered had bought a large knife for her abusive partner. She went "There's context!" That was weak.

They then played the clip where Amber admitted to hitting Johnny and calls him a giant baby for having a problem for it and that he needs to grow up, and also admitted that she started the fight. It ends with "And you did the admirable thing to retreat from a fight!" The attorney asked if Dr. Hughes thought it was admirable to retreat from a fight, and she said yes. And then he got her to admit that it was not reactive violence in this case after claiming Amber only acted in reactive violence.

She also go weasely when he asked if it was reactive violence to throw bottles of vodka at your partner for falling off the wagon, but ultimately got her to admit that the first one might be reactive but the second wouldn't be, and then she got annoyed and said "It's never okay to throw vodka bottles at people!" Oof.

What he did after this was spend a lot of time tearing down how she did the test by showing it off. Mostly, she left off filling out some things. Some minor, but a major one is that she said the event for PTSD was... Interpersonal Violence from Johnny Depp. Which is absurd because it's not a moment. It's not isolated to one instance. And she put absolutely nothing about the situation at all and was like "Well no I knew what happened because we talked about it." But he rightfully pointed out that she just didn't include a full analysis. My thinking for why this all seemed relatively tame from here on out and not a layup blood bath was because Dr. Curry on rebuttal is probably going to come in and talk about how Dr. Hughes didn't do a good job on her analysis. They sort of set the stage up for it, and I don't know any other reason they wouldn't go in harder.

So here is the massive blunder from Depp's team. Remember when I said that they opened the door to talk about Amber's other relationships where she was an abuser? Well, Depp's lawyer asked Dr. Hughes about when she said that Amber wasn't abusive in any prior relationships and Hughes said "No, I never said that." Then they immediately sidebar for a while. They actually don't let them discuss it when they leave the sidebar. How the absolute hell did they not get this in? The only thing I can think of is because she decided to LIE and change her story (for the obvious reason she knew she screwed up), that Depp's team didn't get a quick transcript snippet from her saying that which is crazy to me. I'm actually shocked they didn't get this in, because it should have been the easiest thing to do.

Elaine hopped up for the re-direct and did a bit of damage control, but I think its really clear Dr. Hughes is absurdly bias and ommitting obvious information at this point. Nothing that notable, honestly, except bad lawyering from Elaine when she tried to get more complete evidence in after it was originally admitted.

Anyway, next is Amber Heard's testimony. Now, you guys know I don't believe her, I know she's lied A LOT, and that I'm already going into this unbiased. It's hard to strip that. I had tried, but it came across as horribly rehearsed and just fabricated stories. I wanted to be more fair and see what other legal professionals. So I went to one I follow who has been a prosecutor and is now a defense attorney that has dealt with victims discussing their abuse often for her opinion. And then I also got the opinion of a lawyer who deals with a ton of divorce work and hears often about abusive situations too. That also led me to a panel of attorneys talking about it who have no agenda on LawTube (YouTube's legal community). Consensus is that she's clearly lying and telling rehearsed, unnatural stories.

It was hard for me to place exactly why it felt so off, for the most part. I think a lot of it was going 0-100 emotionally when it came to telling the story. She also went out of her way to tell her traumatizing abuse in excruciating detail, and peppered it with a lot of really unnecessary details that can't be impeached. Typically, it's a lot harder for people of abuse to want to give so many details. You can also compare her telling her story during the UK trial to this one, and she was ripping pissed and angry during each story, and now she's just sad and feels like someone acting like she's traumatized. She also couldn't shed a single tear while she was crying which... was a little off-putting, to the point it seemed like she was almost angry she wasn't able to produce tears.

What also makes her stories highly suspect is that she has called 0 people to corroborate any of them or lend credence to them, and that's her choice to do that. And in a couple of stories so far, the only witness to this is Jerry Judge (who is deceased) and Johnny Depp's daughter, who it was agreed upon they would not be involved, or these unnamed friends of hers or random people who witnessed it. It's worth noting that Johnny Depp did not look up a single time during this testimony, and only looked up at her when she was talking about his daughter.

I'm not saying this is the case for sure. I wanted to try to get other opinions since I know it's a serious thing to call out someone who claims abuse as not being truthful. And it's very difficult to come to grips that she would make up elaborate lies like these because of how sinister they would be, but it really, really just feels like it. But you are all welcome to watch for yourself or go and look to other sources. This is just what I've gathered with some extra opinions. With that, I'll summarize everything she said.

She began by discussing that the hardest thing she had to do was give a deposition for the UK trial, until this. It was something that struck out to me since you would think the days she almost died and was thrown through glass and brutally beaten and sexually assaulted would have topped that. I have no doubt it will be questioned. She also talked about her childhood about how her father was a complete sweetheart (when it is on the record he abused her and her mom, and he was arrested recently for running a dog fighting ring). She discussed just being a modest girl working many part time jobs to leave her small town in Texas and did work to help the deaf and homeless and went to audition 10 times a day to try to get an acting job in Hollywood.