Sky News
'Just because he wants to make the article about himself, doesn't mean it is'
Amber Heard's lawyer Ben Rottenborn says the key question jurors have to consider is whether the actress had the right to write what she did in the Washington Post in 2018.
Mr Rottenborn says that "
you cannot simultaneously protect and uphold the First Amendment (on free speech) and find in favour of Johnny Depp".
The lawyer takes the jury back once again to the article, showing them the version that appeared in print.
He tells the jury that it is Depp's burden to prove several elements in this trial, and if he cannot then Heard wins.
But jurors do not have to decide whether or not Depp committed abuse, he says.
He addresses the three allegedly defamatory statements in Heard's article, which the court also heard from Depp's team earlier today.
"
Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out."
"
I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse."
I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture's wrath. That has to change (the headline, which Heard did not write)
Mr Rottenborn tells jurors to read the article and think of its purpose, which was to promote legislative measures designed to protect victims of domestic abuse - people who did what Heard did, "
speak out".
The lawyer says these statements have to be false for Depp to win this case.
He says this would have been "
a very different article" if Heard had written about what she "
suffered".
"
Just because he wants to make the article about himself, doesn't mean it is," Mr Rottenborn says.
sure glad mine aren't being shown .. they'd possibly make JD look like a saint
