Camille Vasquez, a single of the lawyers representing Johnny Depp in his defamation lawsuit versus Amber Listened to, cross-examined Ms Listened to over the class of two times on 16 and 17 Might.

The instant, which saw Ms Vasquez looking for to undermine Ms Heard’s believability and her statements that Mr Depp sexually assaulted her and was violent in opposition to her, has been described as “often harsh” by Deadline, which mentioned: “Depp’s attorneys may well have lacked an precise kitchen sink, but they attempted to throw a single figuratively at Read now all through further more cross assessment of the Aquaman actress in the $50m defamation demo.

“That method continued for the duration of the redirect, with Depp’s legal professionals contacting out ‘objection’ on almost every single problem by Bredehoft, about half of which Choose Penny Azcarte sustained.”

The Independent spoke to two lawyers about Vasquez’s cross-evaluation technique, which include its doable rewards and disadvantages.

Jesse Weber, an lawyer and host on the Regulation & Criminal offense network who has protected the circumstance from the Fairfax County Courthouse, imagined Vasquez was “impressive” and delivered “a pretty tight cross”.

Mitra Ahouraian, an entertainment lawyer in Beverly Hills, imagined Vasquez “came in potent just after a 7 days off, which is to be expected.”

“Normally you never have significantly time to get ready – maybe a day, possibly an hour – prior to you leap into cross-assessment,” Ahouraian extra. “Camille Vasquez had the benefit of over a 7 days to prepare inquiries in response to Amber Heard’s immediate testimony and pivot her game program primarily based on the responses Heard gave. She had superb control in excess of Amber as a witness, preserving her on monitor with Depp’s narrative, managing her solutions to keep her from veering off into regions outdoors of the story Vasquez preferred her to explain to.”

There ended up some specific difficulties in approaching Heard’s cross-assessment.

“Any time you cross study an alleged target of domestic abuse, specially sexual violence, you have to be fragile, but agency,” Weber stated. “I feel Vasquez did that.  In point, at one level, she manufactured it very clear that she has to inquire these challenging queries for the reason that these are really serious allegations.”

Ahouraian pointed out that “Heard had a week to put together for cross-assessment, to review her testimony and put together for the questions her group understood would be coming her way.”

“This is not normal and undoubtedly generates a a lot more hard witness on cross, but luckily for us for them Depp’s group experienced the exact amount of money of added time to put together,” she extra.

Vasquez’s tactic in cross-analyzing Read was tonally strong, with the attorney at moments interrupting Heard, smirking, or or else appearing to show discomfort to the witness. This is a double-edged sword when it comes to convincing the jury.

“You by no means want to convert the jury off,” Weber explained. “The jury are human beings and as substantially as they are meant to comply with only the law and facts, they do acquire into account the behavior of attorneys. If an attorney gets overly combative or arrogant or impolite, that can be a problem.

“Vasquez appeared to be respectful of Heard but simultaneously she sought to tarnish Heard’s reliability. It can be a difficult dance for an legal professional. She didn’t necessarily get Heard to confess to everything. On the other hand, by way of Vasquez’s pointed questions, brief comebacks, smirks, it may have still left the jury with the impact that Heard’s stories are not introducing up.”

Ahouraian stated this tactic can generally “[rattle] the witness, [distract] them from their answers and [create] a stress that makes it tough for the witness to get their story out.”

“It can, on the other hand, minimize the two techniques,” Ahouraian included. “A jury can get irritated with this line of questioning if they truly feel the actual story is not coming out, or if they feeling they are remaining manipulated. Camille Vasquez has to toe the line between remaining tricky on Heard and likeable to the jury.”

Closing arguments in the demo are scheduled for 27 May possibly, immediately after which the jury will deliberate.