Criminal Lawyer Reacts to Testimony From Amber Heard and Her Psychologist

[Music] hi this is bruce rivers welcome to another fun-filled episode of criminal lawyer reacts i'm bruce rivers board certified criminal defense lawyer which means i actually go to trial i don't just hold your hand and plead you guilty today we are reacting to more of the johnny depp saga two things we're going to talk about today we're going to talk about the psychologist testifying on the defense side and then also uh amber heard's testimony we'll kind of analyze both now the procedure in this case this is a case obviously where uh johnny depp has sued uh amber heard for 50 million dollars she's counter-sued for 100 million um and so she has claimed that she's got ptsd post-traumatic stress disorder and because she's claiming that what that has done is put that in her mental health into play so johnny depp as we did in our last video we showed you that her she had a psychologist or johnny depp hired a psychologist to do an independent medical exam well today we're going to analyze the uh her own psychologist that she hired to review her records and do a diagnosis and then we also will talk a little bit about her testimony now in this case the judges only allotted so much time for each side to present their arguments and uh so and the judge said look if you get in the middle of a witness and your time is up your time is up and that'll be it but here's the other thing now amber heard testified uh this week on direct examination and she's under what's called a sequestration order that means she can't talk to anybody about her testimony at all including her own lawyers now do we think that that probably is happening probably i mean it's pretty risky thing to do because if there's any conversation that she has about her testimony at all the judge will strike her entire testimony so while this weekend is going on she can't practice lines or do anything with her own lawyers because next up is cross-examination there is so much fodder here for uh for cross-examination the uh johnny depp's team has got to be very focused and not like the defense has been the defenses you know they'll ask just the most inane questions uh over and over again and and they're really objectionable but they're just burning up time so you know when when you ask the question like when did you stop beating your wife and you say i've never beat my wife and then you ask that okay well when you were beating your wife um you know the sky was blue wasn't it and you know and they kept going down that road over and over again what the lawyer says isn't evidence the answers are evidence so just because this and i think what the defense team is doing here is completely ineffective they're going over and over again these these questions that are that they're getting nose to but they're tr they think they're getting out a dialogue or a narrative that just isn't true so let's kind of dive into the forensic psychologists that amber heard uh and her team have hired uh when you're talking about in intimate partner violence you have to pay attention to gendered stereotypes well one of the issues that he brings up right off the bat is uh gendered stereotypes now i see this all time in my practice where you have an expert who's basically there to vouch for the witness and this person has examined her and examined him and heard and she hasn't examined johnny depp she really hasn't taken any of johnny depp's side of things into account and it's unclear as to how much video and audio evidence that she has seen but as she goes on to testify it is so clear that she is so gender testimony that um that amber is all good and johnny is all bad stereotypes correct i'm not sure what you mean well you said we were going to have to pay attention to gendered stereotypes and then you testified at length where you reference both men and women you paid attention to those stereotypes during the course of your testimony correct what i was saying was you have to pay attention to gendered stereotypes when you're conducting these evaluations you can't assume all the time that the male is the perpetrator and the female is the victim you have to go and so that that's an important statement you can't always assume that the male is the perpetrator and that the female is the victim but she goes on to do just that went to the evaluation understanding that the male also could be the victim of intimate partner violence in fact you're aware that there are large-scale studies that do say that ipv towards males does exist of course okay and every time you refer to the characteristic of a victim of intimate partner violence yesterday you used the pronouns she or her didn't you i was using the she and her pronouns in this case because my determination was as i stated that miss heard was the victim of intimate partner violence that is why so and she she's hearing amber heard story and she's she's a hired gun for amber heard so and just just like the other psychologist was a hired gun for um for johnny depp but when you play some of the you know when you play some of her and we're going to analyze amber heard's testimony in a minute here but when you go back and you look at some of the things like she's [ __ ] in a bed and she said it was a practical joke and she [ __ ] on her his side of the bed who does that who uh who starts a physical fight you know and and and we'll play some of that but her testimony is 100 percent gender bias why i was using the she her pronouns you in fact said women gets into the relationship for all the right reasons that's what you said woman gets into the relationship for all the right reasons and then you say difficult for her for victim to extra extricate herself you go on to see that she can and she should over and over you she right i believe in this case i did because i was referencing this case where i found misheard to be the victim of intimate partner violence it doesn't mean that men don't get into the relationships for all the right reasons too i believe they do now if you look at johnny depp's lawyers they don't have the invective they don't have the snarkiness they are more measured and and the class of lawyers is really a stark stark difference nearly every time you referenced the perpetrator of ipv you use hear him didn't you and it goes back to the same reasoning as i'm describing my understanding and my evaluation in this matter of course men can be perpetrators and victims of intimate partner violence that's well established in the research and that's well established in my clinical practice as well isn't the reason that you use the pronouns that you did that you almost always testify on behalf of a woman that's not correct you don't even remember the last time you testified on behalf of a man well i don't test her testify on behalf of someone i testify as to the results of my evaluation i frequently treat and assess male victims of childhood sexual abuse who are coming into treatment for abuse by their boy scout leader by their cat with a coach by their teacher by a trusted adult so which when you when you look she talks about okay that's a way when you um when he says to her you don't even remember the last time you testified on behalf of a man what he's trying to get out is her own bias right that she is uh you know she's never testified where the man was uh a victim of ipv now that's uh intimate partner violence the things she just referenced there a coach um a uh camp counselor a priest whatever that they're all first of all they're all male on male number one and number two they have nothing to do with ipv they have nothing to do with uh you know violence between a man and a woman i see them in therapy i see them in forensic matters and criminal cases so i treat and evaluate men all the time i didn't ask you about treatment i asked you about testimony you talked you broke out your practice between see if no i i don't like to criticize another lawyer for doing their job but i i do kind of that was a perfect spot for the lawyer to look at her and say well yeah but those number one those are all male on male correct and number two they have nothing to do with an intimate partner relationship right and then she'd have to say yes i mean and so and that kind of that takes away her credibility almost immediately but here's the thing this case isn't going to come down to experts in all honesty this is going to come down terry he said she said and and the most important evidence in this case is going to be the actual recordings and the people that were around them that heard and saw this or that between treatment and testimony i'm not asking about treatment when's the last time you testified on behalf of a man i testified recently in a deposition on behalf of a man who was traumatized because he was wrongly convicted at the time because he was wrongly convicted convicted of what um not not ipv i can guarantee you that of your deposition six weeks ago you couldn't remember a single time you testified on behalf of a man i testified in my deposition that i testified in a case of a man who was wrongly convicted about 20 years and suffered physical and sexual alliance in prison and i detailed the traumatic effects of the that that happened on that gentleman again mail on mail march 28 2022 correct yes all right let's go to page 77. and it's a common um cross-examination technique when somebody doesn't give the answer that you think is the right answer or inconsistent with some of their prior testimony you confront them with a prior statement and you show them the statement and it's isn't it true on this particular occasion you testified to x which is what he's doing here let's look at and it goes to the adage you don't ask a question you don't know the answer to so when he asked for that question he knew exactly where we where he could find the answer that he's looking for let's page 70 land eight so you can't recall a single instance where you were hired by the attorney representing the mail in an ipv matter correct in an ipv matter not in a trauma matter or a child sexual abuse matter okay so that's the distinction you've nev you don't have any recollection of ever testifying on behalf of a male in an ipv matter as i stated yesterday the very first case that i testified in wasn't a same-sex intimate partner violence where the man see same-sex so it's two gay guys in inter uh you know intimate partner violence between two guys not between a man and a woman and that's the distinction what's the victim of another man i routinely treat and assess same-sex couples where then the female can be the perpetrator of another female and the male can be the perpetrator or a victim of his partner so let me get this you testified in a case where one male is alleged to have engaged in a ipv against another male correct okay but that's the only one you're around that's the only one you're gonna you remember no i've done this frequently as you well know most cases don't go to trial i've worked on hundreds and hundreds of cases you've limited to testimony many cases don't come to trial but i've issued reports and worked on many cases of same-sex intimate partner violence where men are the victims but but i did ask you about testimony and and i limited your the question to testimony and the only testimony that you remember is the two is the same sex couple right there were multiple same-sex couples i believe that i tested them they testified in court at trial i believe so yes all right but you didn't remember that in in march i did remember that in march okay uh you're a professional witness correct that's not correct so when when you're dealing with somebody that's got an advanced degree like a psychologist or another kind of doctor or an expert in any kind of field you have to be careful not to run the risk of overplaying your hand because if you give them a little wiggle room um you know they're going to be able to defend themselves and they're going to be pretty agile on their feet and she seems pretty be pretty agile no you make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year testifying in court correct that is not not testifying in court i conduct thorough comprehensive psychological evaluations of individuals who are that's kind of a a method of trying to discredit uh an expert witness but based upon how much money that they that they receive and i don't think it's all that effective because nobody believes that unless they're a complete [ __ ] nobody really is going to believe that this psychologist is going to lie like crazy just for the money but they do shade their opinions in the light most favorable to the person that's hiring them that's for sure involved in a court case the majority of those cases never show up in a courtroom and half of my practice and half of my income is about my clinical work with people who are coming to me for therapy i didn't ask you about the other half of your income i'm asking you whether you made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year testifying as an expert witness in court as you're phrasing that question that's not correct i that would be the amount of income that i generate from my forensic practice i testify perhaps maybe once or twice a year the best of most of the work is done behind the scenes in evaluating individuals and issuing reports but you'll agree with me that a big part of that practice is providing expert witness testimony that's not correct no that's not a big part of your practice if i testify twice a year that's not a big part of my practice all the other time is doing the work for the cases and evaluating the individuals and issuing reports right what percentage of work do you devote to forensic psychology as i stated yesterday i i say half and half clinical half forensic but i also have a substantial amount of time that i use in the professional activities and serving on professional boards so what portion of your practice do you provide expert witness services i think you're using the expert witness services synonymous with the forensic psychology part of the practice so the forensic psychology practice so that's just a snippet of of her psychologist so let's kind of move on a little bit to the first time that uh amber heard testifies about the first time that johnny hit her i i tried to this is after he stopped talking to me for some time didn't tell me why when he came back in my life he wouldn't explain why he was acting different he just kind of acted mad at me i didn't know what i had done wrong and when i brought up the dress and the event because it was event to support a charity i was really involved with at the time and i said you know did you see that thing and he said yeah yeah i think the whole world saw that kid that's how they'll remember you that's how the world will remember you i was like oh come on i mean it's like but it you know i felt i felt good in it at this point i think i would have objected at least two to three times and i don't want to criticize uh another lawyer necessarily because they've got their own strategy and how they're doing things but she's kind of going off on on just a tangent i felt good and he said yeah kid that's what you're putting out there in the world no one will ever forget that and that's all they'll see you as objection your honor narrative that's what you that's what you wanted that's what you were going for you know my dress was low-cut i get it slow cut but i felt um you know i felt really embarrassed and horrible that i wore that i felt like how could i have made that choice of course you know he's right you know you start to believe it i i started to believe that that made a lot of sense of course um but it didn't stop with that it's just it was clothing in general and when i walked out of the house it was never it wasn't just like hey you're not allowed to wear that it was like oh really that's what you're wearing no wonder no wonder you get cast in those roles no wonder you see i mean she's overacting here in my opinion um and i know i've gotten a lot of comments or not a lot of comments some comments where they say oh you picked a song you know she's a victim blah blah blah [ __ ] i i don't buy that for a minute i i've watched a lot of this trial and i've listened to a lot of the recordings there's nothing backing up the [ __ ] that she's talking about you that's what you are that's what you're making it and it just it you know it continued and then then there would be a blow up and at first it was just to throw something smash some things um notice there's no context to the blow up there's nothing there's no reason to be bugged just because she she went out and uh you know went to a red carpet event with a low cut dress that's enough to [ __ ] blow it up are you kidding me loves to smash up a place an apartment furniture is what it started with glass threw glass at me and i remember it was summer um and he just threw this glass across the kitchen and i it didn't hit me but i i it shattered behind me and i remember thinking that it like very easily could have hit me and that calling me a horror it didn't start with using the horror word it was just comments until it would escalate and then i started to notice the pattern of escalation where he'd throw glass or turn over a table then he would hit the wall and then he'd hit the wall really close to my head see we're not really talking about the first time that he hit her and that was the question and now it's just a complete [ __ ] word salad of uh of whatever you know how what a piece of [ __ ] johnny is and and uh all this jet you know like when i'm standing there you know just hit the wall screaming at me um but then he would um disappear and get clean and sober and he'd come back and tell me that he had he was done drinking he was over it he's done he's cleaned himself up he'd done it before and he'd do it again what does this have anything to do with the first time that he she ever [ __ ] hit her again and then he would go back to this like wonderful like almost like just unreal like real you know but un unbelievably nice sensitive kind warm generous interesting funny man that i loved and he would make me feel so loved like it would get i would feel so distant from that thing that was so scary that i would not even recognize that you and that was how you know our relationship kind of started to develop in that first year do you remember the first time that he physically hit you yes please tell the jury about it it's seemingly so stupid so in like insignificant i will never forget it i changed it changed my life i was sitting on the couch and we were talking we were having a like a normal conversation you know just there was no fighting no argument nothing and um he was drinking and um i didn't realize at the time but i think he was using cocaine because it was like there was a jar a jar of cocaine out on the table i realized that sounds weird but it's like an actual vintage jar of it but i didn't see him use at the time so i didn't really factor that in i just you know he's drinking and we're talking and it's there's music playing and he's smoking cigarettes and we're sitting next to each other on the couch and i asked him about the tattoo he has on his arm and to me it just looked like black marks it like i didn't know i didn't know what it said it just looked like muddled faded tattoo that was hard to read and i said what is it what does it say and he um said it says wino says why no and i um i didn't see that i thought he was joking uh because it didn't look like it said that at all and i laughed it was that simple um i just laughed because i thought he was joking so now here here comes the waterworks and here comes where it really doesn't make any sense and slapped me across the face and i laughed i laugh because i i didn't know what else to do i thought this must be a joke this must be a joke because i'm i didn't know what was going on i just stared at him kind of laughing still thinking that he was gonna start laughing too to tell me it was a joke but he didn't he said you think it's so funny you think it's funny [ __ ] you think you're a funny [ __ ] and he slapped me again like i was clear it wasn't a joke anymore and i stopped laughing but i didn't know what else to do you know you i i i didn't know what to do you you would think you would have a response but see she's kind of led to just go on and on and on and on and i suppose there the defense team also might have another strategy let her let her dig her own grave and you know uh because the more she talks the less believable i think she is actually i is a woman had never been hit like that and your immediate he slapped me for no reason it seemed like and i missed the point it was that stupid second slap i know he's not kidding but i don't know what else to say or do so i just stared at him i didn't say anything i didn't react i didn't move or freak out or defend myself right or say what are you doing you're crazy i just stared at him because i didn't know what else to do and he slaps me one more time hard i lose my balance um at this point we're sitting next to each other on the edge of the couch i was on the edge of the couch and i'm all of a sudden realizing that the worst thing has just happened to me that could possibly happen to you i realized that i i wish so much he had said he was joking okay does that make any sense i mean she's acting here she's absolutely 100 acting because it didn't hurt didn't physically hurt me i was just sitting there on this on this carpet looking at the dirty carpet wondering how i wound up on this did you see that she was on the couch now she's on the carpet on this dirty carpet it just the mechanics of what she's talking about this carpet and why i was never why i never noticed that the carpet was so filthy before and i just didn't know what else to do and when people we're going to do another thing here shortly has a body language expert and and what they talk about there is when people are lying a lot of times you know they'll come up with just details that are completely irrelevant uh so that so it sounds more believable but it isn't i didn't know what to say i didn't know how to react i just sat there thinking how much time do i have to i figure out what i need to do because god did he just hit me no i didn't want to leave him i didn't want this to be the reality i didn't want to have the man i was in love with she sounds like she's crying she sounds like she's sad but there are no tears no tears i know you don't come back from that you know not dumb i i know you can't hit a woman i you can't hit a man you can't hit anyone you can't just hit somebody because they i knew there was no i knew it was wrong and i knew that i had to leave him and that's what broke my heart because i didn't want to leave him i thought if i got up out of that room and i would leave the best thing that ever happened to me the best thing to ever happen to me a guy that is a cocaine-fueled uh drunk who beats the [ __ ] out of you that's the best thing that ever happened to you and i wish i could sit here and say i stood up and i walked out of that house and i drew a line and i stood up for myself [Music] i was just looking at the dirty carpet trying to will myself to get up to walk out okay that's enough of that [ __ ] um so so that's her describing the first time let's talk let's now shift focus a little bit and look at um at what the body language expert says painful this is this is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything hear people that i knew some well some not my ex-husband with whom i shared a life speak keep in mind this is on direct examination so in direct that's where you know you ask questions that are open-ended like what happened next and what can you describe this about our lives and the way that they have um this has been one of this is the most painful and difficult thing i've ever gone through janine driver what are you seeing what are you hearing uh from there listen vinnie i wish we had an hour together i could do a special on this today well we have a show every night so don't worry we'll have plenty of time good i'll have you back so we see just at the end of that clip there amber sucked in her lip and bites her lip this is concern and stress um the the parts the nerves of our lips are stimulated by her sucking in her lips like that it's as if back in the day when we sucked our thumb at that comforting gesture so we see that uh the problem with amber in her testimony is that she does all these start stop sentences this is congruent with someone who is being deceptive and the clips you played earlier uh it's it's interesting because her percentages are off you know the question was do you remember the first time you were hit and she says yes and she stacks the deck in the beginning this is something we saw with jesse smullett who staged a hate crime in chicago a couple of years ago he did that's what i said earlier how they stack the deck with you know seemingly true facts but that are completely irrelevant to anything did a huge percent about 60 up front in his story the actual incident where this bad stuff happened to him was like 20 and then a short after we're seeing the same thing here with amber heard she's stacking the deck up front she gives us this big stress about how much cocaine he had in this bottle she's giving us irrelevant information liars will often do this vinny they'll give us a lot of truthful information at the front they're stacking the deck right they're telling us all these things are truthful i believe that the cocaine was there i believe it was a big a big bottle i believe they were sitting on the couch together the problem is when she gets to the actual attack it is such a small percent it's maybe 15 we have a big before a big after the incident itself is small the percentages are off here we're always looking for about 30 percent up front 20 to 30 50 of the attack and then we're looking for a small after what happened after it should be really short maybe 10 15 no more than 20 percent and that's because when somebody's making up a story you know they can tell you over and over again what really happened you know like leading up to whatever but when you have just a small window that they're making up you know they gloss over it and and they keep it down to a bare minimum and so her percentage is off also i want to talk about something called statement analysis if i may one of the things when she said he slapped me i want you to re-listen to it over and over again she doesn't say he slapped me she says flapped me she drops the pronoun and when people are being deceptive vinnie people will have a change in pronouns or they'll drop it she doesn't say he slapped me she also changes her tents so she goes from slapped the first one's a slapped the second one's a slap past tense the third one is a slap that is current sense when people are making up a story they'll talk in current tense i wrote down some of the things he then she then said before i knew it he starts crying instead of he started crying her current tense to past tense is indicative of someone who's making up a story in the spot i think parts of it are true and many of it is deceptive and that's why anyone in law enforcement watching this i spoke to law enforcement earlier today it's laughable sadly what she's doing on the court so that's that's a uh communication expert she actually trains fbi and uh i i i have to quite agree with her so i thought those two analysis of uh you know taking a look at what she says and then having somebody analyze somebody who's a communication expert analyze her story for truthfulness now clearly somebody like that is not going to be admissible in court otherwise they'd have her analyzed in court but it gives you kind of a sense of what to look for when in amber's testimony now here's the other thing so come monday she'll be cross-examined by the defense and the defense has got all kinds of arrows in their quiver they've got the shooting on the bed they've got the recording of her starting a physical fight and calling johnny a baby because she smacked him and he's bitching about it they've got all kinds of other things and they also have a real lack of corroboration like the the incident that happened in australia and the defense i think or the the johnny depp team also has something up their sleeve there's something about kate moss and i don't exactly know what it is but there was a fist bump uh when they started talking about kate moss because i think they opened the door to that so uh we'll see you know we'll do we'll continue to do the reactions on on the depth trial uh it is very interesting and now remember cross-examination you control the witness you you know you can't ask leading questions on direct but you can uncross and when you ask isn't it true that this isn't it true that that isn't it true that this and on this particular occasion isn't it true you know and so you you control it with yes or no questions and you can rest assured when the johnny depp's team is cross-examining they're going to play every damning recording that they possibly can and there and there really isn't a single record and it's funny how somebody like this would would take a picture of johnny depp just sleeping you know i mean there's only one reason to do that and that's to have some damning information about him later anyway so this is bruce rivers this has been our reaction to the johnny depp uh amber heard trial and we'll continue to follow up next week and we'll see you next time here on criminal lawyer reacts make sure you follow us on twitter uh follow us on instagram subscribe like the video spread the word and sign up for patreon because we are doing some damn 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Channel: CLR Bruce Rivers

Views: 1,176,422

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Id: kHabg2cEmKw

Length: 35min 53sec (2153 seconds)

Published: Mon May 09 2022