You didn't have to follow all six weeks of the John C. Depp, II v. Amber Laura Heard coverage to understand its potential to set a precedent in the court of public opinion. You didn't even have to adopt the social media tendency of making it a competitive spectacle, pitting Johnny Depp's very large, vocal, and emotionally invested fanbase against Amber Heard, to understand something larger was at stake
All you need to understand is the optics playing out inside the district court in Virginia's Fairfax County on Wednesday, where Heard, the defendant, sat on one side while Depp's legal team represented its absent client as the verdict was read.
