Year in Review: The five wildest courtroom dramas of 2022
Kaelan Deese
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The year 2022 brought an end to pandemic-era virtual courtroom trials and unmasked striking testimonies in high-profile cases across the country.
From the millions of viewers who watched a jury rule that Aquaman star Amber Heard had defamed Johnny Depp to the more than $1 billion owed by Infowars host Alex Jones for false claims about the massacre in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, here are the most striking trials of the year.
Jury finds Amber Heard defamed Johnny Depp
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A jury in June found that Amber Heard defamed ex-husband Johnny Depp and ordered her to pay the actor damages amounting to $15 million. The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
Broadcasts of the trial amassed a total of 83.9 million viewing hours, with 3.5 million peak viewers during the announcement of the verdict, according to streaming information pulled from Law & Crime’s coverage of the trial.
Talks of a retrial stirred for months until the final days of the year, when Heard took to Instagram on Dec. 19 to announce she was not going to continue the legal fight against Depp.
Heard said that harassment on social media played a part in her decision: “Now I finally have an opportunity to emancipate myself from something I attempted to leave over six years ago and on terms I can agree to.”
The details of those terms have not been made public.
Harvey Weinstein guilty of three charges in rape trial involving Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife
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Weinstein was found guilty of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault in a mixed decision on Dec. 19.
He was found guilty of all counts of rape and sexual assault pertaining to Jane Doe 1, but the jury acquitted him of sexual battery against Jane Doe 3 and was hung on the three other counts against him from Jane Doe 2 and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who is married to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA).
Weinstein is already serving a 23-year sentence after being convicted of committing a criminal sex act and third-degree rape in 2020 and is being held in a detention facility’s medical unit. His defense attorneys have appealed that conviction, and it’s unclear whether he’ll serve his sentence concurrently with that one.
Three Michigan men convicted in plot to kidnap governor
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Three men found guilty of aiding leaders in a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) were sentenced on Dec. 15.
Pete Musico, 45, received a sentence of at least 12 years, and his son-in-law Joseph Morrison, 28, received 10 years. Paul Bellar, 24, will serve a minimum of seven years in prison.
The men were part of the Wolverine Watchmen militia, which helped train ringleaders Adam Fox and Barry Croft for the kidnapping plot, prosecutors argued during the trial.
Whitmer was never physically harmed after undercover FBI agents who were inside the group for months foiled the plot and made arrests in October 2020.
Darrell Brooks sentenced to six life terms for parade attack in Waukesha, Wisconsin
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In a difficult trial where decorum was out the window, Brooks was eventually sentenced on Nov. 16 to six life terms for killing six and wounding dozens after he drove his vehicle through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, last year.
Brooks’s trial began earlier in October as prosecutors looked to prove that Brooks intentionally drove his car through the crowd at significant speeds with “utter disregard for human life.”
His trial was considered to be unusual because he chose to represent himself in court, asking vague questions and repeatedly interrupting prosecutors as they made their arguments.
Alex Jones ordered to pay over $1 billion after multiple Sandy Hook trials
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Jones, the InfoWars host, was ordered to pay over $965 million in damages by a Connecticut jury in October after his defamation trial over his false claims regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting that took place in 2012.
In November, Jones and InfoWars’s parent company Free Speech Systems were ordered to pay an additional $473 million to the victims’ families and an FBI agent.
Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Dec. 2, detailing he has between $1 million and $10 million of assets and between $1 billion and $10 billion of liabilities.
Parkland victims’ family and friends react to shooter dodging death penalty
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The gunman who murdered 17 people in 2018 at a South Florida high school, 24-year-old Nikolas Cruz, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Nov. 2 by Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer.
After the conclusion of a monthslong trial in October, the family members and friends of the victims killed in the shooting expressed their frustration that a jury opted against the death penalty.
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Cruz was 19 at the time when he went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and opened fire on 14 students, as well as three staff members.
“Parkland murderer, it is my hope that you go somewhere to meet your maker,” said David Robinovitz, the grandfather of a 14-year-old who died in the shooting. “And, Parkland murderer, I hope your maker sends you directly to hell to burn for the rest of your eternity.”