Experts say that the amount of attention on this trial is offering abusers a look at a whole new way of potentially exerting power over a survivor.

Nicole Bedera said she feels “scared” watching the defamation trial brought by Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard.

There has been an extraordinary amount of media attention to the case, which is taking place in a Virginia courtroom, but seemingly all across social media. With the near daily stream of graphic testimony that has emerged from it for weeks on end, Bedera, a sociologist who studies sexual violence, said she can see a new blueprint emerging: Defamation suits could become a way for perpetrators to lock survivors into years of abuse.

“A defamation suit offers a perpetrator a deepening of the power disparities in the relationship and face-to-face contact with a survivor,” Bedera said. “Defamation cases are often a punishment for leaving.”

Experts say that the amount of attention on this trial is offering abusers a look at a whole new way of potentially exerting power over a survivor. The situation is all the more intensified because of the nature of a defamation suit itself.

Heard wrote a op-ed for The Washington Post in 2018 in support of the Violence Against Women Act. She explained that her belief in the need for stronger protections for survivors of gender-based violence was personal, writing about the way that coming forward as a survivor of domestic violence had impacted her mental health and...

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