The judge in the case, Penney Azcarate, told jurors that the trial would be about six weeks, suggesting a complex case that may come down to the believability of certain witnesses over others. The jury is not sequestered, but they were advised not to read or research the case, even to turn off their cell phone notifications to prevent them from accidentally seeing a news alert.<\/p>\n
Fairfax, VA is 19 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., a suburban enclave well within its sphere of influence but enough removed to make the flood of cameras of a celebrity trial a bit unusual for the city. On Monday, along with a Court TV truck and a lineup of about a dozen cameras were about 25 spectators, some hoping to catch a glimpse of Depp and others planning to stay the duration of the trial in support. Some had strong feelings about Depp and Heard.<\/p>\n
“I believe that he’s innocent, and I believe that he’s in the right by doing this,” said Raylyn Otey of Bluefield, VA. “As a feminist, you want to believe the woman. You want to believe that she’s telling the truth. But I just feel like I can look at her. I can look in her eyes and I don’t believe her. And it really has nothing to do with Johnny Depp. I feel like there’s a big injustice going on here, and I really do believe he’s being framed.”<\/p>\n
Otey, who drove about five hours to get to Fairfax on Sunday, brought some flowers she wanted to give to him. But as it turned out, Depp entered through a side entrance, and she did not see him.<\/p>\n
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One of the spectators, a financial adviser who works across the street from the courthouse, was just curious about all of the commotion.<\/p>\n
“Someone jumped off the parking structure three weeks ago. This is the biggest thing to happen since then,” he said, referring to a man who leapt from a five-story courthouse ramp but survived.<\/p>\n
The trial ended up in Fairfax County because Heard wrote her 2018 op-ed, in which she identified herself as a victim of domestic violence but did not name Depp, for the Washington Post<\/em>, which is printed in nearby Springfield and circulated in the region. Until the state passed an anti-SLAPP law in 2020, Virginia also had been viewed a bit more favorably as a place to file defamation claims.<\/p>\n In contrast to Depp’s fans who showed up as spectators, members of the jury pool professed to be a bit more in the dark about the case.<\/p>\n One potential juror admitted that over the weekend, he was intrigued enough about why the case was being held in Fairfax County that he looked up the Heard op-ed to see what it was all about. “I thought it was a very well written opinion piece,” he said. He wasn’t picked.<\/p>\n A number of those who had heard about the case said that what they knew was sketchy. One woman said that she learned from her 16-year-old daughter that “something was thrown” and that there was abusive language. She, too, was not picked.<\/p>\n Most of the potential jurors were a bit of a blank slate when it came to Hollywood. When asked whether anyone worked in the industry or had family members who did, only one woman offered that her daughter recently got a job at Universal.<\/p>\n
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