` HEARD-IMMUNITY and DEP-PERCEPTION
HEARD-IMMUNITY-The long-standing concept this time applied to actress Amber Heard, that women just don’t lie when they claim they have been victimized by men. Females however, are at times not able realize they are victims. For example, if they make a friendly or loving text after a sexual encounter with a man and later claim the encounter was rape, the woman was mistaken in the original text. Or for instance Mary Koss’s data, in which the majority of women she counts as raped say they weren’t, but then how would these women know more about their life than a major feminist thinker they never met?
DEP-PERCEPTION- Accepting the “Heard Immunity” concept that women don’t lie, means all men in these interactions are lying when they present a different version of the facts. So, they are naturally PERCEIVED as the culprit, meaning men such as Johnny Depp have to be guilty. Therefore, they are victims of “Dep-Perception”.
Those desiring injustices against men to be discussed, were excited that actor Johnny Depp was making his case of being libeled and abused in front of the world, or more accurately on the “Court Channel”. No doubt the trial did make some people more cognizant to men in such predicaments. Still, the inevitable reactions through much of the mainstream press will no doubt diminish such benefits. First, they tell us, even if Depp’s charges are true, the real issue is that now women in similar circumstances will not be believed. Others contended that women don’t lie in such situations, so Heard must in actuality be the victim.
My first awareness of the legal case was from this website (Johnny Depp appears to be innocent of Amber Heard’s accusations of abuse). It alerted me to a conversation where Heard replied to Depp’s complaint about hitting him. She admitted it and rather than be contrite, she was angry at him for complaining. She explained: “I didn’t punch you… I was hitting you; it was not punching you. You didn’t get punched, you got hit… I did not f****** deck you, I f****** was hitting you… You’re fine, I did not hurt you… you’re a f****** baby. You are such a baby, grow the f*** up, Johnny (https://www.aol.com › entertainment › amber-heard…).” Depp’s response to being hit was to get away from Heard, which Amber complained about.
That’s how afraid Heard was of Depp. During the trial, we also learned that, Amber gave a gift of a knife to the man of whom she feared for her life. Yes, Depp is clearly bigger and stronger than Heard. But that is more reason for her to be afraid of the violent man she claimed him to be. Reverse the sexes and this is pretty much case closed, with the verdict in favor of the punched, excuse me, hit female.
Heard doesn’t sound like a victim. On the PBS show the “News Hour” we learned from guest Ruth Glenn, President of the “National Coalition of Domestic Violence, that Heard did not look like a victim either. Was she talking about those times where Heard alleged violence and yet was seen in public or on film, showing no evidence of it? Or could it be when the police came to her home after a complaint of domestic violence and saw no sign of Heard being hit. Neither! Glenn noted that in the Heard case we have: “a miscarriage of understanding the dynamics of domestic violence.” She continued: “you won’t be believed… unless you’re the perfect victim, a victim that is palatable to society (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/ show/ defamation -trial- for-johnny-depp-and-amber-heard).”
Let me note, that I am not at all sure I would have sided with the unanimous jury decision in favor of Mr. Depp. Even if you believed all the claims of abuse made by Johnny, a very high standard was needed. During closing arguments, the jury learned: “One time ladies and gentleman. One time. If he abused her one-time Amber wins. Actually, if he fails to prove that he never abused her one time, Amber wins.” In addition, they were told: “And we’re not just talking about physical abuse. We’re talking about emotional abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse.”
Depp made a serious of texts about being violent towards Heard. As far as physical violence, I think only one person, Amber’s sister, claimed to witness violence by Johnny. The fact that Depp threw things, is in his favor. It looks like something he did to dispense anger and avoid hurting people. But with all the drugs and alcohols he consumed, Depp could even have been violent to her and not remembered.
Some who testified on Heard’s behalf, while not saying they witnessed Depp being violent to Miss Heard, were pretty convincing that he probably had. Also, was the question of how much of the damage to Depp’s career was due to Heard’s article in “The Washington Post”. She had made statements about being a victim in other places, but the Post article was the basis of Mr. Depp’s lawsuit.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe Heard clearly libeled him as well as being abusive. If he had not won, I would have considered it a major injustice. But consider the high bar Depp had to clear. Even if the jury believed Heard severed his finger, add all the times Depp claimed Heard hit him, pooped on the bed and so, on, one slap by Depp and they are mutual abusers. Reverse the sexes. Imagine the public reaction, if in a trial this widely watched, we learned a women had to meet such a standard. Think of all the Hollywood shows and movies that would have been made condemning what the law considered to be mutual violence. Yet millions of people watched the trial. Where was the public outrage that Depp had to meet that standard?
During the case, both alleged they were the victims but not perpetrators of physical assault. The data is clear about what group is the victim of such one-way violence. It is who the Spanish call hombre, the French call homme, feminist when being kind, call them patriarchal oppressors, the guys in the play “Guys and Dolls”, you know men. I was going to provide a lot of data for it, however this in not the topic of this article, you can check it out yourself. I will cite instead, a study conducted by “The Center for Disease Control”, that appears to be superior to most due to its large sample size, as well as appearing to have been done without any preconceptions. The study sampled, 11,370, people, studying 18,761 heterosexual relationships. They found that regarding one way violence, 70.7% was initiated by women and 23.9% by men. They also found that mutual violence led to the most injuries. https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full /10. 1176/pn.42.15.0031a. However, these studies are a snapshot in time. Most likely a lot of these relationships are still going on. Perhaps a follow-up to such a study would find that a number of the cases where only women hit men, evolved into mutual violence.
Regarding reciprocal violence, the study found, “25%” percent men were injured and “20%” of women. So, what we usually hear about domestic violence, ignores victims of half of the population.
But why would Amber lie? All she had to lose in the trial, was millions of dollars, her reputation and her further film career. We also should understand that women in general, when they getting divorced, are in a custody battle also do not lie. It is when they are part of a random sample in scientific research where women do not tell the truth on such matters, or are perhaps are victims of some syndrome that keeps them from realizing the truth of their victimhood.
Which leads me to two articles in the “New Yorker” by Jessica Winter. The magazine itself notes that it is “considered by many to be the most influential magazine in the world (https://www.newyorker.com/about/us.” In his book “Women Can’t Hear What Men Can’t Say”, Warren Farrell gave a more objective assessment: “The New Yorker” is “perhaps the most mainstream magazine appealing to sophisticated literary intellects in the world.” Also, schlubs like me. Winter wrote two articles for “The New Yorker” about the trial. The first on May 23, “The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial Is Not as Complicated as You May Think” and the second on June 2, “The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Verdict is Chilling.”
In the first piece, she discussed the recording I cited of Depp being hit by Heard and Amber confirming it, as sounding: “uncannily like fragments from a darvo scenario, in which an abuser denies what he is doing at the same time that he deflects and projects his behavior onto the person he is abusing.” You get it? Johnny saying Amber hit him and Amber concurring, is evidence that Johnny is abusing her.
Whether darvo scenario is a legitimate phenomenon or not, my view after reading about it, is the definition does not seem applicable to Depp in this instance. Actually, what most resembles darvoing in my opinion, is Heard telling Depp that her punching did not hurt him. Depp responded: “Don’t tell me what it feels like to be punched.”
Winter’s first article appeared in “The New Yorker” on Monday May 21, the trial ended that Friday, May 25th. In her first article, Winter had apparently already decided that Heard deserved to win the case. She also noted that the Depp’s lawyers took “fearsome advantage” of the strict hearsay rules applied by the judge. As if Heard’s lawyers did not do the same. She put significance in both articles that Heard had won a similar trial in England. In her second article in the magazine she related: “But the two most crucial strikes against Heard may have been that (judge) Azcarate permitted camera’s in the court room and did not sequester the jury.” Meaning jurors may have violated the rules and examined the coverage of the trial by the media.
However, the last four days of the trial after Winter’s first article appeared, were in my opinion and shared by the Court Channel analysts, some of the most beneficial to Johnny’s case in the trial. As for the first trials decision, it is quite unlikely that any of the rebuttal witnesses brought on by Depp in these last days, testified in the England trial. Most of them were primarily allowed to appear, in order to contradict things said by Heard earlier in this trial. As for heresy, things that I discovered that weren’t admissible in the trial, is the reason I have changed views from Depp should not win the case to being undecided on the verdict.
As far as the trial being televised, Winter contended that if jurors violated the media ban and looked at what was said about the trial, they would come across the pervasive anti-Amber comments on social media. They may have instead come across things like Winter’s first slanted article, published before the end of the case. Most likely, if any did violate the rules and I’m not contending anyone did, jurors probably would have looked for what the witnesses were not able to say due to the strict heresy rules, of which Winter mentioned had been harmful to Amber.
The trial being televised no doubt did help Depp, but in a way Winter did not observe. Powerful rebuttal witnesses learned about the case and ended up testifying, because it was televised. The fact that Winter omits this, is strong evidence that Winter did not pay attention to the rebuttal witnesses other than to discount them. So, then what was this rebuttal evidence (I am giving the names of these witnesses so you can check out their testimony yourself)?
Heard had testified, that she hit Depp in an incident in which she claimed Johnny would have otherwise pushed her sister Whitney Henriquez down the stairs. Amber maintained she only ever hit Depp in such self-defense situations, despite being recorded contradicting this contention. On the stand, Henriquez confirmed Amber’s version of what happened on the staircase.
Jennifer Howell testified that she learned her close friend Henriquez had lied in the England trial. Howell was not allowed to tell what Henriquez actually told her, due to the heresy rules. What was left out of the testimony that Howell maintained Henriquez said to her? Rather than Amber saving Henriquez from Johnny, Howell claimed: “Whitney said when she tried to intervene to stop Amber from going after Johnny, Amber nearly pushed Whitney down the stairs. She told me she was worried Amber was going to kill Johnny.” Howell also confirmed that as Depp’s claimed, Henriquez told her that her sister severed Depp’s finger.
In response to these allegations of perjury by Howell, Henriques maintained: “This is complete fiction. Jennifer Howell’s statements do not bear any relationship to the truth and I have no idea why she is saying this (https://www.newsweek.com › jennifer–howell-amber). Notice Henriquez did not claim it was because of any falling out between the two women. So, my best guess is that she did not contend this, because such a claim could be shown to be false. There also appeared to be a pattern. When Amber claimed abuse, the incident turned out instead, to appear that Johnny was the actual victim. Could it be that in order to make bogus claims, she used her own abusive behaviors to remember actual events and then twisted them in her favor?
Refuting the contention that Heard never hit an intimate partner, police officer Beverly Leonard testified that she had witnessed Heard hitting her then female intimate partner at an airport. Learning that Heard would do this in front of people, would certainly make the jury wonder what Heard might do capable of behind closed doors.
Morgan Knight former owner and manager of “The Hicksville Trailer Palace” where the couple and their friends vacationed, contradicted Heard’s testimony that a jealous Depp threatened a women Heard was talking to. Knight said instead, that he witnessed Johnny “cowering” in front of Amber when they were there. He also disputed Amber claim that Johnny trashed their room, finding only a broken light fixture.
This was confirmed by texts I read from people who were at the cabin’s the same time as the couple. They contested the claim that Johnny was jealous and threatening to a female Amber was talking to. A woman who worked at the Palace maintained instead, that Depp was talking to her, and Amber was jealous. This contradicts both Heard and her witness Raquel Pennington. I had found other testimony by Pennington while not saying she saw Depp hit Heard, the most compelling witness that he may well have done so. I now have to find all of Pennington’s testimony regarding about Depp, extremely questionable. It also should be mentioned that unlike Heard, Depp has never been accused of domestic violence by any former partner.
Morgan Tremain, said that he had received a video filmed by Heard at TMC television, his employer at the time. He noted that the version sent to him had been edited, eliminating “Amber’s seemingly snickering.” He also testified that on another occasion, Heard most likely set up TMZ to arrive after a court hearing, in order for them to see a bruise on Amber’s cheek. In cross examination of Heard, Depp’s attorney observed, it was the one time Heard appeared without makeup and that Amber bought her publicist to the court that day.
Heard and her team had listened to all of this testimony. Then she was cross examined for a second time. Most likely she realized that things were desperate for her case. In any event, her cross examination created further challenges for those who wanted to believe in her honesty. Amber claimed not that Morgan Knight lied about what happened at the Palace, but astonishingly, claimed he wasn’t even there. An easily disprovable contention. Reading twitter comments from people who were at the Palace at the time, it was noted that they could easily find a number of people to contradict Amber’s assertion.
Heard stumbled further during this cross-examination. She explained why she wrote “The Washington Post” article, saying: “I know how many people will come out and say whatever for him. That’s his power. That’s why I wrote the Op-Ed.” In her previous cross examination, she had testified: “the only one making the Op-Ed about Johnny is ironically Johnny.” Of course, the question of whether “The Washington Post” article was about Depp is what the lawsuit was based on.
Actually, even before her admission, it would be hard to find anyone who did not think Heard was not referring to Depp in the article. If it was not deemed to be plausible, the trial would not have gone to court in the first place. Well from what I read in her New Yorker articles, maybe Jessica Winters did.
Amber’s admission also contradicted other things brought out in the trial. Rather than Depp being a powerful figure in Hollywood, her lawyers had contended that Depp’s diminished status in Hollywood, not Amber’s article, was a reason, he was not cast in his signature role for the sixth Pirates movie. So much for that idea. Also, contrary to what Heard said, it had been brought out earlier that it was the ACLU not Amber who wrote the Post article.
Closing Argument
One cannot help notice that the part of the case Depp lost has received close to no attention. That decision was not based on what Depp said but rather his attorney. Why should Depp be financially libel for something his lawyer said? However, this is not a problem. Heard had claimed on a television show that she had donated the money awarded to her in the divorce settlement to charity. In truth, she had only given a small percentage of it. Under oath, she explained that pledging and giving money are the same thing. No doubt, those who believe Heard did not lie under oath, will insist that Depp should just pledge the money owed Heard and not give it to her. After all pledging and giving are no different.
People who watched the trial, are going to demand Heard’s film career should be over. I think such cancelling is wrong. Most people get away with bad things they do with no punishment. Cancelling, inevitably leads to both restricting free speech and free markets. Innocent people get caught up in such attempts to silence people. Guilty people don’t have a chance to redeem themselves. Of course, if Heard as a public figure distorts what was said in the trial, it should be refuted.
Finally, if by some fluke Jessica Winter finds out about this article, she can write whatever she wants in the comments and I will not reply if she prefers that I don’t.
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