June 07, 2022
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial anonymous jurors are accused of dozing off in between proceedings.
Court reporter Judy Bellinger touched upon the inattentive gestures of the jury in a recent interview with Law & Crime Network.
"There were a few jurors who were dozing off," she said, adding that the sleeping jurors were in both the front and back rows. "And it was tough. There were a lot of video deposition, and they would just sit there and all of a sudden I'd see their head drop."
Bellinger also added that the "best" juror was not part of the final verdict.
"Unfortunately, the one alternate that was on there, she was probably the one that listened the most. I watched her facial expressions, she was very deeply into every word that was being said. I thought she would've made a great juror, and she did not get to see it to the end."
"She was paying close attention," added Bellinger.
Earlier, Amber Heard's lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, subtly accused the jury of being influenced by social media smear campaign against the actress.
"How can you not? They went home every night, they have families, the families are on social media. We had a 10-day break in the middle because of the judicial conference. There's no way they couldn't have been influenced by it."
"And it was horrible — it really, really was lopsided," the attorney continued of the online attention. "It was like the Roman Colosseum, how they viewed this whole case."