Alright I'm going to make a thread about this for people to be clear about the basic facts of the Depp/NGN case, or to reference as a quick explanation for people.

Note: I am not a lawyer, so if any of this isn't (strictly) correct, please feel free to correct me.

First, a few basic things to make clear:

1. JD wasn't the defendant, NGN was.
2. This was a civil (libel) suit, meaning it's about liability, not guilt.
3. This means that JD wasn't convicted of anything. Rather, his loss (legally) merely means NGN was found not liable of libel.

Why this nonetheless hurts JD:

JD was suing for libel about NGN's use of the term "wife beater." For that reason, NGN had to prove that their claim was substantially true. To this they brought up 14 allegations of DV. The judge ruled that 12 of these passed the burden of proof.

HOWEVER:

1. The ruling was on the balance of probability, NOT beyond a reasonable doubt. This means that the judge considered these 12 allegations more likely to be true than not, and the description of JD as a "wife beater" more likely to be substantially true than not.

2. The conclusion of the ruling is based almost entirely on AH's testimony. It is not for an abundance of evidence that this particular verdict was reached, but rather that the evidence (including testimony) presented by JD was found to be less compelling than AH's words.

3. It is extremely worthy of note that the audio recordings that convinced a large portion (if not the majority) of the public that AH's claims were not to be believed were explicitly considered by the judge to be less reliable evidence than AH's sworn testimony in court.

The reasoning for this last point was that, since the recordings are of out of court statements, not under oath, they should be considered less reliable than sworn, in-court testimony, in which the witness can be questioned, apparently even if the witness has incentive to lie.

Essentially, the point is that it's hearsay (which, contrary to popular belief, is actually often used in court and can be very compelling depending on its nature).

One should note, however, that the same logic should then apply to security footage.

This is essentially equivalent to having footage of someone walking into a store right before it got robbed and walking out again shortly after with a bag filled with stuff, and saying they should walk free if they deny it on the stand, even if they were identified by witnesses.

In fact, all the more so in that case, since it would be a criminal trial for which the burden of evidence is much higher (beyond a reasonable doubt). Based on the same arguments that the judge used for the recordings, the thief should walk free.

Thus this is something one would have to logically agree to if they agree with the judge's reasoning on this case, and that is ignoring all the other problematic reasonings and cherry-picking of evidence in the judgment, not to mention the many (explicit) assumptions he makes.

In short, there is very good reason to debate this judgment, if only because there is very good reason to debate the notion that witness testimony should be considered more reliable than candid audio recordings. The judgment itself is up for debate.

#JusticeForJohnnyDepp