Amber Heard's attorneys have requested that the $10.35 million defamation verdict against her be overturned, stating that the evidence did not support the verdict and that one of the jurors may not have been adequately vetted by the court.

In post-trial motions filed on Friday, Heard's attorneys describe the judgment of $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages to Depp by the jury on June 1 as "excessive" and "unjustifiable." They request that the judge overturn the verdict and dismiss Depp's claim or that a new trial is ordered. Immediately following the verdict, the judge capped the compensatory damages at $350,000 per state law.

Depp filed a libel lawsuit in Fairfax County Circuit Court against Heard for an opinion piece she published in The Washington Post in December 2018. She referred to herself as "a public figure representing domestic abuse." Depp's attorneys claimed he was defamed by the story even though his name was never mentioned.

The six-week broadcast trial became a spectacle that revealed the toxic nature of their marriage—much of the testimony centered on Heard's claims that Depp mistreated her physically and sexually. Heard reported more than a dozen alleged assaults, including a fight in Australia where Depp lost the tip of his middle finger, and Heard said she was sexually attacked with a liquor bottle.

Depp stated that he had never struck Heard and that she was the abuser.

Depp was required to demonstrate that he never assaulted Heard, that her op-ed defamed him, and that she authored the article maliciously.

In post-trial motions, Heard's legal team contended that Depp would have had to prove that Heard did not believe she had been abused when her piece was published to establish Heard's genuine malice.

In contrast, "the evidence overwhelmingly supported Ms. Heard's belief that she was the victim of Mr. Depp's abuse," Heard's attorneys state in their request.

In addition, Heard's attorneys request that the judge investigate "potentially improper juror service," alleging that one of the jurors selected to serve on the jury was listed as having been born in 1945 in documents provided to the attorneys before the jury selection process, but as having been born in 1970 in publicly available information.

In their request, Heard's attorneys stated, "This discrepancy raises the question of whether Juror 15 actually received a jury duty summons and was properly vetted by the Court to serve on the jury."

The attorneys for Depp did not reply quickly to a request for comment.

In addition, the jury awarded Heard $2 million in her counterclaim against Depp, finding that Heard was defamed by one of Depp's attorneys, who accused her of orchestrating an elaborate hoax that involved making the couple's apartment appear worse to police.

In some ways, the trial was a rerun of a lawsuit Depp launched against a British tabloid in the United Kingdom after he was characterized as a "wife-beater." In 2020, the judge found favor of the newspaper after determining that Heard's accusations of abuse were accurate.