Johnny Depp, Amber Heard’s trial jury, was dismissed for the day

Both sides in the bombshell libel trial of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp dropped their cases Thursday after the actress made a final appeal on the witness stand.

The jury was released around noon Thursday after Heard testified, and Fairfax County Circuit Judge Penney Azcarate urged them to “have a good, relaxing afternoon and evening.”

The former couple’s respective legal teams are preparing for closing arguments, which are scheduled to begin around 9 a.m. ET on Friday after six weeks of testimony in the sensational trial.

Azcarate said the jury will begin deliberations Friday afternoon and will not give them a time limit in which to think about their decision.

The court will rest Saturday through Monday for Memorial Day weekend, and the jury will resume deliberations on Tuesday, May 31, if necessary.

Both sides rested their cases during Thursday’s half-day court, when Heard returned to the stand and made her final plea to the jury.

Depp, 58, is suing Heard for $50 million in damages and says he was defamed in her 2018 Washington Post op-ed, in which she wrote about becoming a “public figure, the domestic one.” represents violence”.

Heard sued her ex-husband for $100 million, claiming she was defamed when his team made statements on his behalf that she fabricated the domestic violence allegations.

The jury decides on both suits. It may find both Depp and Heard guilty, either guilty, or both not guilty. It’s unclear if and how much money they will award to either plaintiff.

Because juries are notoriously unpredictable, it’s impossible to tell how long it will take the seven jurors and two alternates to deliberate, but they certainly have a mountain of evidence before them.

Both sides were given more than 60 hours to summon their own witnesses and to cross-examine the other side’s witnesses. Depp and Heard each testified for about four days, and both teams called crowds of character witnesses, expert voices and people involved in the couple’s explosive and toxic relationship to tesitfy.