It's Memorial Day in the US. The last Monday in May. Sort of like the beginning of summer there.
The jury in the case of Depp v Heard took the long weekend off. They deliberated for two hours on Friday before closing.
Depp and Heard motored away mid-afternoon, Depp to throngs of fans, Heard to jeers and boos.
The actual case documents are online and available for free download. There are a lot of them. Start here.
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/circuit/high-profile-cases
For someone coming in out of the blue, as most people did, it could have been a bit bewildering. What's going on with those two anyway?
Amber Heard's testimony was especially compelling. One got the picture of a dangerously toxic relationship and continually wondered “why why why” did they put up with that? One perhaps remembered that Depp had been together with a French chanteuse for something like 15 years. And he and she had children together. And, most importantly, he'd escaped from the insanity that is Hollywood and LA in general. Just like Oliver Stone once upon a time - to write his first major screenplay away from the “cocaine”. Or like Belinda Carlisle and her husband, son of British actor James Mason, had done once Northridge happened. Johnny was safe over there - why did he come back? Did he need even more money? Was acting that important to him? And, crucially, why did he break up with the chanteuse and leave his family?
Johnny Depp was fascinated by Hunter Thompson, and, evidently, found an unpublished manuscript of Thompson's that turned into The Rum Diary. Thompson passed away before the book morphed into a movie project. One of the roles Depp had to fill was for the in-and-out vixen. The director had auditioned a number of potentials, including Amber Heard. He really couldn't make up his mind about Heard. He turned the matter over to Depp. They finally decided to go with Heard. But otherwise Depp had little contact with her.
There's one scene in Rum, the shower scene, which proved pivotal for private lives.
Johnny's said that there was something wrong there - that he shouldn't have been feeling what he was feeling if his relationship to chanteuse Vanessa Paradis and their two children was OK.
So that's what happened to Depp and his family. He took a step down. He dared return to the pit. This took some time, but it's Amber who came in the way of Depp and Vanessa.
After Amber's testimony on the tragedy of their relationship, people were likely inclined to sympathise with them both, and ask “why the F did you stay together so long?”
But then Depp's attorney Camille Vasquez took over for the cross and everything started to fall apart.
Camille became a sensation overnight.
Camille's law firm is a monstrous organisation. Hundreds of lawyers on board. It's been said that Camille had been preparing for this cross for months. And people present in the courtroom say that, when it was over, she turned to the gallery, let out a huge deep sigh - and then tears of exhaustion began running down her cheeks.
Camille's cross changed everything. Suddenly this was no longer two confused people who went too far and began eating at each other. Suddenly this was a macabre tale of extremely detailed gaslighting, gone on for years.
It doesn't seem to have been mentioned ever in the courtroom or by any of the channels covering the case, but Heard hadn't exactly been in a heterosexual relationship up to then, and word has it she's already back with a woman again.
One by one, witness after witness, including the impressive Shannon Curry, one saw the facade crumble. Some of the tricks used were childishly inept. Some were so diabolical they were scary.
And suddenly the whole world turned against Amber Heard. Popular YouTuber Colonel Kurtz recorded an open letter to Amber the other day, conceding that she, Amber Heard, was likely, at that moment, the most hated person on the planet.
All this took place without the help of mainstream media. All this was a grassroots phenomenon. But even more importantly, Heard had attempted to co-opt “MeToo” to achieve her goals, and, in so doing, brought down that movement as well.
Big ships take long to turn. But they do turn.
The jury in the Depp v Heard case will be back tomorrow. 0900 Virginia time. Many predict a verdict by lunchtime.
Resources
On the off-chance (on-chance) you're intrigued by this case yet have not been able to follow, here are some resources.
The actual case exhibits can be found here.
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/circuit/high-profile-cases
The entire trial was televised live. The two most popular feeds were from Law & Crime and Fox.
https://www.youtube.com/c/LawCrimeNetwork/videos
https://www.youtube.com/c/livenowfox/videos
Fox is mostly single camera. LAC put up to three cameras onscreen at once. LAC provide chit-chat in the breaks and also have countdown clocks so you can fast-forward easier. The Fox feed is OK, but sometimes they seem to sleep at the wheel.
The court was in session from 0900 to 1730 five days per week. For about 28/29 days. Given that there are two coffee breaks each day, 15 minutes each, and one hour for lunch, that's seven hours of footage to look through. For each day. That's a lot.
Both Fox and LAC also make shorter highlight clips, but the risk there is you'll only pick up bits and pieces and not get the full picture.
There have also been a number of prolific YouTubers involved. Scientific professionals who want to analyse body language. They even got an actual attorney who works in the same courtroom to give his opinion.
There are seven people in the jury for this case, with two alternates ready to jump in. They will share a single air-gapped laptop loaded with all the court documents as per the first link above.
Ramifications
Given that this case is a high-profile case - so what? Why is it such a big deal? Why have tens of millions followed court proceedings every day? Why did Joe Rogan admit he was addicted to watching? Why have people been so fascinated? Is it only for the prurient peek at someone else's dirty laundry?
Online discussion of this case is mostly on Twitter. Draw your own conclusions. And, as for the MSM, perhaps things have finally been put in a proper perspective. Nothing beats crowd sourcing. The hacks assigned to write 300, 600, 900 words about the case could often care less and have not been following anyway. Yet a sign of what's going on came when even the venerable Times had to admit to it. Of course their assigned hack didn't follow like the “crowd” had been following, of course only a dim grasp of events was apparent, but the wave of this grassroots “stirring” was too great to ignore.
Cancel culture and MeToo turn jurisprudence on its head. Suddenly presumption of innocence is out the window. Suddenly a mere accusation is all that's needed to cancel someone.
Which in a way makes sense. As ultimately it can be a question of money behind it all. You personally have nothing against so-and-so from fill-in-the-blanks ethnicity moving into your neighbourhood, but you'll have to move anyway, as your property's value will plummet. So-and-so film studio are actually fond of so-and-so actor, but all the negative publicity will impact box office. And so forth.
Johnny Depp seems through with Pirates anyway. He said they could offer him $300 million and a million alpacas to return but he'd still turn them down. Johnny might experience a resurgence now, but how about Amber Heard? Word has it on the grapevine that the studios just don't like her. And that's often enough to cancel anyway.
Ultimately it's down to the almighty dollar. The studios will go with whoever can bring in the bucks and they'll shun anyone that can financially damage them. So, in a strange way, it's back to “people rule”. And that may not be a bad thing.
Trial Highlights
Heard's “direct” 16 May.
Cross with Heard 17 May.
Summations 27 May - leads off with Camille Vasquez. Heard's attorneys were running out of time at this point, their final time at the podium was limited to six minutes, but Depp's attorneys finished with seven more hours to use if they'd wanted.
This chap calls himself Spidey and he's “credentialed” and here he brings along a lawyer who works this very courtroom, fifth floor of the Fairfax building, was present in court, and took notes in stenography. His contribution is he seems to know his stuff when it comes to courtrooms and trials. And here they go through the jury, jury reactions, and more.
There are perhaps millions of clips available. Best are the actual day-long live transmissions - bare naked reality and no more. But that's a gargantuan feat few will be keen to undertake.
Colonel Kurtz has also been helpful. Here's her full collection.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAxriNBFZQPTsj9vBOSnhkA/videos
Her “open letter” to Amber.
Her final clip for now.
The Bigger Picture
She's a witch? Put her in the river. If she floats, then she's a witch!
Yes, things were done like that once upon a time. (Are they cyclical? Does “batshit” return to the human race every so many hundreds of years?)
Where did cancel culture come from? How does it end?
Can it be weaponised as Sharyl Attkisson says? Definitely yes. And it can be and is used almost anywhere, not just in “western” societies. But taking from recent western history one finds a number of egregious examples.
Julian Assange
Perhaps the all-time biggest one for now. Why was Assange cancelled? He outed powerful people. His Collateral Murder video, first shown in Washington DC 5 April 2010, was devastating not only for its contents but, more importantly, for the fact that it called Obama and WaPo liars. Obama had mentioned the incident in the video, said it was no big deal and not at all what people were implying. WaPo claimed to have a copy of the video, and they agreed with Obama. No big deal.
Then the video itself hit, and people could see who'd been lying to them.
Hillary's State Dept told the governments in Europe that they must arrest Assange on the spot, worry about justification later.
Sweden ultimately complied, using a variant of cancel to turn an entire nation against him.
Today Assange awaits deportation to the US.
Jake Appelbaum
A good friend of Julian's, Jake came out at a Logan Symposium blasting away at the Guardian, detailing just how despicable they were, and ending his talk by saying that he'd just ended his journalistic career.
True words. A short time later a cancel attack was levied at Jake. Purportedly already in the Netherlands to pursue a PhD, he's stayed out of sight ever since, doesn't dare surface.
Trevor FitzGibbon
Trevor is a media marvel. Working exclusively with “progressive” causes as he calls it, he established offices in several countries and was representing Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, and the governments of Venezuela and Ecuador.
Then the bad guys swooped and did damage to all those clients just by taking out Trevor.
And no, it doesn't matter that Trevor was exonerated. It doesn't matter that Jake was too. And it doesn't matter that Sweden was way out of line in holding onto Assange for ten years. They got what they wanted, those bad guys.
Johnny Depp is an incredibly popular person. It's not just his film roles. He's just a sweet and kind person. David Letterman said he's their best guest ever. Accolades for Johnny - as a person - are all over the Internet, all over YouTube, long before this case. Meaning Johnny Depp has the power to turn this bastard of a cancel culture around.
Johnny's said that the verdict is irrelevant, as he finally got to tell his version of events. He was right off to Sheffield to play back-to-back gigs with Jeff Beck. Kurtz says - and she has a point - that things will go even worse for Heard if she somehow wins.