Johnny Depp Denied Appeal in British Libel Case

I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know the ins and outs of the legal system, but from what I have gathered, the American legal system is vastly superior to the British legal system. For starters, judges don’t wear those dumb powdered wigs in America.

The latest ruling in Johnny Depp’s libel trial against The Sun for calling him a “wife-beater” kind of confirms my suspicions. According to Variety, Depp’s appeal was denied by the same judge who presided over the original trial and feels he couldn’t have possibly made a mistake.

In last week’s ruling, the judge wrote: “The findings of fact by a first instance tribunal (particularly one, such as myself, who has heard oral evidence) are rarely open to challenge on appeal. In any event, I do not consider that the proposed grounds of appeal have a reasonable prospect of success (and that is also the case so far as the grounds of appeal suggest that I erred in principle or in law) and there is not some other compelling reason why permission to appeal should be granted.”

That’s like letting a high school student grade their own paper. Who had the idea to let judges review their own cases for appeal?

Apparently, Depp can still ask the Appeals Court to hear his case, but why on Earth does the judge from the original trial have any input into if his decision should be appealed?

I can’t imagine this judge had any sort of bias but he did seem to weigh Amber’s Heard’s testimony over all the other evidence, going as far to say that recordings of Heard admitting to being physically violent towards Depp were not as important as her testimony during the trial, nor was the testimony of all of the other witnesses who seemingly took Depp’s side. If that’s the way the British legal system is supposed to operate, it’s not just the miserable weather that should make people think twice about moving there.