Law&Crime Sidebar - Juror Explains Why Heard Lost, Bill Cosby Deliberations, Vince McMahon Update

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

A juror from the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial has spoken out as the war of words between the sides continues in the media. Jesse Weber sits down with litigator Richard Schoenstein to break down the strange twist in Bill Cosby's sex abuse trial. Jesse also talks with wrestling podcaster Luke Owen about WWE CEO Vince McMahon's misconduct scandal and his decision to take a step back . . . or maybe not?GUESTS:Richard Schoenstein , Trial LawyerLuke Owen, Host of the WrestleTalk News and WrestleTalk Podcast which can be found daily on YouTubeLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Sean BauerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will

keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Tell people that it was a fair fight and see what the jury and judge think. Tell the world, Johnny. Tell them Johnny Depp. I, Johnny Depp, Matt, I'm a victim, people tonight to sign and I know it's a fair fight. It sees how many people believe or side with you. Well, a jury has spoken in the Johnny Depp

Amber Hurd trial and now a juror has spoken out about the case and explains how they took some major issues with Amber Hurd's testimony. And speaking of the jurors, the jury in Bill Cosby's sex abuse trial had to start their deliberations all over again in a really strange twist of fate.

We're going to break it down with litigator Richard Schoenstein. Plus, an alleged inappropriate relationship with a former employee has forced W.W.E. CEO Vince McMahon to take a step back. What this means for the industry and the man behind professional wrestling podcaster Luke Owen is going to join us. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. So yes, something that we've been waiting for but didn't quite necessarily expect a juror in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial has come forward and done an interview. As you recall, the jury found Amber Heard liable to Johnny Depp on every one of his claims of

defamation against her for three statements that she made in a Washington Post op-ed piece in 2018. Depp was awarded $10.35 million in damages, but that is offset by the $2 million that heard one on one of her counterclaims against Depp, so really $8.35 million. Now, Hurd sat down with Savannah Guthrie from NBC, and as we reported, she said that she doesn't blame the jury. She said, quote, I actually understand he's a beloved character and people feel they know him. He's a fantastic actor.

So a logical interpretation of that is that, according to Amber Hurd, the jury didn't follow the evidence or the facts that was presented, but just was swept away by Johnny Depp, the actor and his fame and his characters. Well, an unidentified male juror has sat down with Good Morning America and completely said the opposite. He said, quote, the crying, the facial expressions that she had, the staring at the jury. All of us were very uncomfortable. She would answer one question and she would be crying and then two seconds later she would turn ice cold. Some of us use the expression crocodile tears.

This is horrible. This is painful. And this is humiliating for any human being to go through. And perhaps it's easy to forget that. I'm a human being. And even though Johnny promised that I deserve this and promised he'd do this, I don't deserve this. I want to move on. So according to this juror, they just didn't believe Amber heard.

That's why they decided the way they decided. She just was incredible, according to him. And that's really interesting because that mimics what many commentators were saying about her testimony as they watched it unfold in real time. So it's interesting now to hear it from the juror. Now, in terms of depth, the juror said, quote, a lot of the jury felt what he was saying at the end of the day was more believable. He just seemed a little more real in terms of how he was responding to questions. His emotional state was very stable throughout. No human being is perfect.

Certainly not. None of us. But I have never in my life committed sexual battery, physical abuse. All these outlandish, outrageous stories. And this was the question that we just kept asking throughout our coverage of the trial, who came off better on the stand? Well, now you have an answer according to this juror. But then he said something that I thought was so interesting. He said, quote, ultimately, what I think is truthful was that they were both abusive to each other. I don't think that makes either of them right or wrong. But to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn't enough for any evidence that really supported. what she was saying. So this is really important because with the jury's verdict, it became a question of, well, they must not have believed Depp abused Herd in any way ever, right?

Saying Heard was not a victim of domestic abuse like she claimed in the op-ed. Not so fast because according to this statement, it makes it seem that maybe the jury, well, and maybe this juror, did believe Depp did bad things to heard. Maybe he even put his hands on her, but according to this statement, it seems that it just didn't rise to the level of sexual violence or domestic abuse as outlined in the op-ed. And again, this was something that we were very curious about. Did they not believe that he abused her or did they just not think it rose to the level of domestic abuse? Now, I should tell you that the war of words isn't ending because after heard did this interview. with NBC. Depp's team said, quote, it's unfortunate that while Johnny Depp is looking to move forward

with his life, the defendant and her team are back to repeating, reimagining, and re-litigating matters that have already been decided by the court and a verdict that was unequivocally decided by a jury in Johnny's favor. This is a statement from Depp's team to Dateline. It was reported by the New York Post. And then Hertz team fired back and said her, and they said this in an email to Insider, quote, if Mr. Depp or his team have a problem with this, we recommend that Johnny himself sit down with Savannah Guthrie for an hour and answer all of her questions. Or alternatively, you know, they could just come on the Sidebar podcast. That would be good, too.

All right, let's talk Bill Cosby. After the comedian had his sexual assault conviction thrown out last year and he was released from prison, his troubles didn't end. No, because now he's in the middle of a very different trial, a civil case. A woman named Judy Huth is suing Cosby for allegedly sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion back in 1975 when she was only 16 years old. Now here's what's interesting because the jury deliberated for two days and they decided on almost all of the questions, including the issue of damages, but they had to restart their deliberations and now everything is in flux. I want to bring in right now a litigator Richard Schoenstein who's with me. Rich, it's great to see you and to talk about such a big topic. I'm happy to have you on. Glad to be here. Thanks, Jesse.

So at the time of this recording, again, we're still in this flux with the jury deliberating. And I want to give everybody some background here because Rich, apparently the jury answered all of the questions except one. They didn't answer one question regarding punitive damages, which you and I know are that monetary award to basically punish. conduct. And then they ran out of time for the day. They ran out of time, and that's when the problem started because the judge had promised one juror that she could leave for a prior commitment and she wouldn't be called back. So now the jury had to begin with an alternate and start all over again. First, let's just start. Have you ever seen anything like that? No. And my blunt answer to that question is, I have never seen a situation like this in 30 years of doing trials, many of them civil, never seen anything like it. To restart deliberations is crazy to me.

It's really strange here because apparently the judge was first going to, and this was over the objections of Cosby's attorneys, to read the verdict on the questions the jury had decided on, but then the deputies, the sheriff's deputy, or excuse me, the courthouse deputies, came in and they were forced everyone to clear the courtroom because there's a closure time for the court at 4.30 p.m. Pungitary issues? What is that? That's not uncommon. That happens in New York courts, too. There's a hard stop time because staff in the courthouse has to get out and they have to

shut the courtrooms down. And that's why most trials don't go past 5 or 5.30. I guess that court had a hard 430 stop time. That's not uncommon, but it has a wild result here. In the middle of a major case. So now they have to restart their deliberations. And I'll tell you, Rich, what's bizarre about. And what's kind of strange is that during the course of the deliberations, the jurors informed the judge that there was an issue with one of the jurors or there was a personality issue between the jurors and, you know, the judge had to speak to them and they had to, they answered a lot of questions about the verdict form and they had questions about damages. I mean, that's not uncommon, right? You have these problems between jurors? No, it's not uncommon. I mean, they seem to have a lot of questions about the verdict sheet. That's not uncommon. They seem to have a personality question in the room. That happens.

And sometimes the judge has to talk to a jury and work them through that. None of that would be terribly concerning on its own. Well, now I'm going to ask you, I don't even know. I was going to say the million dollar question, could be $10 million. I'm not sure. The question is, if you're Cosby or you're his attorneys, what are you thinking right now? Does it seem more likely than not that he's going to be found liable here? It does.

If I understand it correctly, the question they had. hadn't gotten to was punitive damages. And the only way you would get to punitive damages is if he's liable. So I think the assumption is that this jury was prepared to find liability. And if I was Cosby's lawyers, I would probably be looking for a way to blow up this verdict before it gets out. How surprising would it be that he would be found liable, considering you're talking about a case from 1975. Yes, it's not a criminal case. Obviously, they couldn't charge him due to statute of limitations. The fact that this is a civil case, would you be surprised if he was found liable? I wouldn't be surprised, and I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't found liable.

This question comes down to what the jury thought of the testimony, was the victim believable? Did they believe the story? It's a credibility contest. And because it's only a civil trial, it's only a question of which side is more likely to be telling the truth. Nobody has to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. So I would not be surprised if they found it, even though it has all of the obstacles that you just listed. And listen, for Cosby, I think there's a lot of ammunition for him to say, hey, we should have a mistrial here. This is a jury maybe that was tainted by all of the news coverage about my client.

Also, this was a very odd thing that Cosby's team had photographed one of the jurors standing close to a Cosby accuser. This is somebody who had actually been attending the trial and sitting there. The judge ruled that this is not grounds for a mistrial, that he said that there was no conversation that happened between the juror and the accuser, but does that strike you as a little odd there? I mean, is that something that perhaps Cosby's team could work with? Yeah, it seems a little odd. And what I would worry about here is adding up all of these individual factors. You know, the sanctity of a jury room is one of the most important things in our justice system. That jury room is supposed to be complete.

contained, is not supposed to have outside invoices, is not supposed to have prejudice. So now you have a personality problem that's come to the attention of the judge, plus an issue of a juror being close to an accuser, plus an issue of a juror being replaced after 12 jurors had already come up with a verdict of most of the things. I could see an appellate court struggling when you add up all of those factors to think, Was this really the kind of jury deliberation that we need in a case like this? And this accuser is an artist named Lily Bernard, and she spoke to the court and said, I never spoke to any juror ever.

I would never do anything to jeopardize this case. I don't even look at them. She has her own lawsuit against Cosby in New Jersey. And that becomes my question. If he's found liable here, what effect is that going to have on other litigation against him? And what is that say? Because, again, he had a conviction. it was thrown out. He was released from prison. There's obviously these lawsuits, but there's no other

pending criminal charges against him. So what would a liable verdict here mean for Cosby and then the other cases that he faces? Well, I don't know, you know, the liable case doesn't affect the criminal case directly. The criminal case was thrown out because of some kind of defect. And the civil case goes forward. And if he's found liable, he's found liable to this accuser. It doesn't mean that he did anything wrong with respect to anybody else. And I'm not sure any of the findings would say that. So it might not be, you know, what we would call collateral estoppel or binding precedent against him in another lawsuit or in another criminal prosecution. But it might motivate people who are out there with claims against him to go forward. They might think, oh, you can be successful on a

claim like this, even though it's 40 or 50 years old, even though there's a lot of evidence problems, you can still persuade a jury that he is liable. And I'm interested, by the way, one thing we didn't talk about with the jury is it's not a unanimous verdict requirement in this court, right? It's only nine out of 12 have to agree on the verdict. And one thing I'm interested in, because there's this problem with switching in a new juror, is are we going to get a 12 out of 12 verdict? Or are we going to get a 9 out of 12 verdict or something in between? Because if it's 12 out of 12, then all this stuff we just talked about with the jury might amount to harmless error. Didn't make any difference because the entire jury was persuaded. Yeah, that's a good point.

And I wish we could be a fly on the wall to determine what effect this now has that one juror left and one juror is coming in. I'm going to ask you one more question about this. And this is, of course, the monetary award. If he has found liable, what could you predict would be the award? award in this kind of case? I don't know. I mean, that's really subject to the discretion of the jury. They heard evidence about the harm to the plaintiff so they can compensate her in an amount that they feel is right for that. They also have a punitive damage option. And I'm not sure if there's a cap to punitive damages statutorily in this instance. But they have discretion to work with both compensatory and punitive damage. It's not a case where I think she's pleading out-of-pocket loss.

she's pleading emotional harm and suffering and a jury has some discretion to compensate for that kind of thing. We're going to wait and see. Litigator Richard Schoenstein, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Well, it seems that the drama in the wrestling world doesn't only happen inside the ring. Vince McMahon was forced to step down as chairman and CEO of the WWE, the World Wrestling Entertainment Organization after the board investigated him for misconduct. Apparently the board had found multiple non-disclosure agreements with former female employees, and it has been reported that McMahon agreed to pay $3 million to one woman in particular that he allegedly had an affair with and that he paid her this money once she left the organization. But he's not

quite out of the spotlight just yet, even though he handed over his position to his daughter, Stephanie on an interim basis. He can still appear as his character and matches, and he still has creative control decisions for programs. And in fact, he appeared on Smackdown after the news broke. Those poor words are then, now, forever. And the most important word is together. All right. So I'm joined now by Luke Owen, the general manager of Trident Digital Media

and host of the Russell Talk News and Russell Talk podcast, which can be found daily on YouTube. Luke, great to meet you and thanks for coming on the program. Thank you so much for having me. Let's first talk about him doing this appearance on SmackDown. In the middle of all this, everybody knew what was going on. And he says these things, very short appearance on Smackdown. What do you make of it?

It's probably the most Vince McMahon thing that Vince McMahon could have possibly done in this situation. They announced that he was not going to be. Vince McMahon was not going to be on Smackdown. His character, Mr. McMahon, was going to be on Smackdown. What's the difference between the two, just so we know? there's not really much of a difference but like WWW have gone to great lengths over the years to say that Vince McMahon and Mr. McMahon are two separate people

Mr. McMahon is a character he plays on TV, Vince McMahon is the actual business person so they were very clear in saying this is Mr. McMahon going out on there onto TV but yeah it really was just the most Vince thing he could have done at this point because it was essentially a ratings ploy it was just a way to kind of piggyback off the news that had come out from the Wall Street Journal and all the news coming around about him stepping down as a way to get people to tune in and watch the first hour of the show.

And by all accounts, it kind of worked. Although amazingly enough, the second hour of the show, which had a big main event with Roman Reins and Matt Riddle did a better rating than Vince McMahon coming out, sorry, Mr. McMahon coming out on screen. I hate when that gets confusing, you know. Do people like him generally? So I used to be a really big wrestling fan back in the day.

I used to watch it all the time. haven't followed it for some years. Is he still immensely popular? I mean, what are people saying right now in regards to all this news? He's had a tough couple of years. I think the company itself has had a tough couple of years in terms of its appeal to the wrestling community because during the pandemic, they released a lot of their talents. They fired them essentially during the middle of a pandemic where they couldn't go out

and get any other work, which kind of seems like a poor taste thing. And like over the last two years, they fired hundreds of people, not just. just in front of camera, but also behind the scenes as well. So he kind of is always, like the last couple of years in particular have been people are quite down on Vince, also because the product isn't very good a lot of the time. And a lot of that falls onto him because he is the guy who's in charge of all of the creative decisions, the people kind of blame him for the sort of the lack of creating new stars and always trotting out the old favorites and sort of a lazy way of promoting it.

However, because resting fans can be quite fickle at times and it's a very weird industry, He had a match at WrestleMania at the age that he is at and took one of the worst Stone Cold Stonters of all time. And everyone was like, oh, you got to love Vince though, haven't you? A crazy old Vince McMahon going, now they're still having matches and winning matches, no less. I watched that. I watched that Stone Cold Stunner from Steve Austin. It was a little, it wasn't as sharp as it used to be.

No, they edited off the broadcast. Like when they showed replays of it, they kind of edited all the stumbling and stuff and just made it look as good as they possibly. could. Well, let me ask you this. So he released the statement. He says, quote, I have pledged my complete cooperation to the investigation by the special committee. And I will do everything possible, excuse me, I will do everything possible to support the investigation. I have also pledged to accept the findings and outcome of the investigation, whatever they are. I mean, does this seem like a surprise to you, A, the news of these non-disclosure agreements and that he allegedly had an affair

with a woman and paid her off, and that he's just willing to, you know, seemingly based on the statement, except whatever the findings are. The second part of it, I sort of do find surprising whether he does or not to a different matter. The first part of it, not really, Vince has always had a long history of rumors and speculation. There's been stories about him. There's an incident in a tanning salon several years back. There's been instances with a female referee back in, I believe, the late 80s might be in the early 90s. There's always been these sort of stories going around about Vince McMahon. So kind of half of it doesn't, like when the news came out, the kind of reaction from the

wrestling world was like, yeah, pretty much saw that coming. I think everyone kind of knew that that's the kind of man that he was. The second half of it where he was like, I will accept, I think as a wrestling fan, and I think many wrestling fans would have the same opinion, which is, I'll believe it when I see it. Like, I think him going out on Smackdown and acting, apparently backstage at Smackdown, he was acting like nothing had happened. there was a report from Sean Rossapp at Five Force Lake that he was practically jovial backstage at SmackDown and was just like very happy, very smiley and was completely no-selling

the investigation. Do you think the industry could survive with Adam? Do you think the WWE could survive with Adam? Stephanie, his daughter, as I said, was put in interim control. What would be the industry and the company without him? I think the WWE will be fine. like because they have got a very solid base, they've got a TV deals with USA and Fox for the next few years kind of lined up. They've got a Saudi Arabia deal. So like financially, they will be absolutely fine for like the long term thing. It's to whether or not they would survive as a company is a completely different thing there because we've never known WWE without Vince McMahon. Kind of the way the people have always thought about WWE is that Vince will be there until the

wheels fall off, like, you know, whether that is him or whether that is the company. And I, I always thought that as well. I was like, he'll be there till the day he dies. What the company looks like without him is a very different prospect because, yeah, Stephanie McMan is the person who's been brought in, but it's interesting that only last month, Stephanie stepped away from the company to focus time on her family. She was stepping away from her responsibilities as chief brand officer. And then, you know, there was a report in Business Week that the reason she didn't actually step away. She was fired by her father because she was bad at her job. And it's now kind of figured that that article that was in, that came out was actually

a hit piece on Stephanie to kind of like, it was a hit piece that was put out to make her look bad and the company look good, which then looks very weird because they have then brought Stephanie into take over the company in the interim. All right. So we'll have to see how it shakes up because I don't think this is the last of it. Luke Owen, general manager of Trident Digital media and host of the wrestle talk news and wrestle talk podcast, which can be found daily on YouTube. Thank you so much for your insight. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Sidebar is produced by Sam Goldberg and Sean Bauer, YouTube manager Robert Zoki

and Alyssa Fisher as our booking producer. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series. free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.