O.J. Civil Trial.. Why?

Factual Questions
41

IANAL, but

is the correct definition of what a jury finds. A jury decides if the prosecution/plaintiff has met their burden of proof.

Whether society should or shouldn’t hold someone who was acquitted as innocent depends on the facts, and as you note, people are entitled to their own opinion in the matter.

In some cases, people who are acquitted didn’t do it.
In other cases, people who were acquitted did do it, but the prosecution couldn’t prove it in a court of law.

I’m a little confused about your confusion. This statement:

is just what you say if you believe that the person who was acquitted did do what he was charged with. It’s a subset of the possible reasons someone could be acquitted-and is meaningless statement unless an acquittal doesn’t require a factual finding that the defendant didn’t do what he was accused of doing. If acquittal requires a factual finding of innocence, there aren’t any people who were acquitted but still did it (if juries get it right)

On a related note, there is (AFAIK), only one court system where the distinction is made. Scots law has three verdicts a jury can give: “Guilty”, “not guilty”, and “not proven”. The first is a finding of guilt, the second is an acquittal and a finding of innocence, and the third is a simple acquittal.

This is only true when you’re talking about the presumption in a court of law/in the eyes of the law. O.J. is presumed to be innocent of the murders after his acquittal so far as the criminal justice system is concerned. Private citizens can hold any opinion they care to in the matter.

42

On review, there’s such an example in this thread :

Is this true, from a legal point of view, or just a widespread belief?

But in fact, regardless of what they were asked, they answered the same question. I can imagine a situation where this wouldn’t be true. For instance, I hit you with my car, you die, I’m accused of first degree murder and I’m found not guilty. It doesn’t mean that I can’t be sued for damages . The fact that I didn’t plan to kill you doesn’t mean that I’m not a reckless driver, for instance.

On the other hand, in O.J. Simpson case, I doubt a similar argument could be made. If the jury in the civil trial had to take as granted that Simpson didn’t murder his wife, would have they been able to find him liable? Did they have any basis other than “we think he did kill her” to find him liable? In other words, weren’t they just told to answer exactly the same question as the criminal trial jury, except with a lower standard of evidence?

43

I disagree with that premise. It is good to have lawyers making laws just like it’s good to have engineers making cars. Lawyers have a better understanding of how the legal system works and can phrase laws so they are more clear in their intent and effect. having laws made by non-lawyers would result in laws which would not be as legally clear and could backfire in many ways.

44

Well, from a practical point of view, let’s assume that a TV anchor, after the trial says : “O.J. Simpson, who murdered his wife some years ago, blahblah…” . If the local law allows Simpson to sue the anchor for slander, and the anchor doesn’t have a leg to stand on because Simpson has already been found not guilty by a court of law and as a result, the anchor is assumed to be a liar making baseless and damaging accusations against an innocent person, then this would be a case where “society at large must hold him as innocent”.
But more generally, my question is about what “found not guilty” actually means from a legal point of view as opposed to what people think it means, regardless of whatever opinion a particular person could have regarding a particular case. For instance, a previous poster stated that the presumption of innocence implies that someone who’s found not guilty is necessarily innocent, which would be logical. If he’s right, you can’t say that “not guilty” isn’t exactly the same thing as “innocent”.

45

No, they weren’t. Burden of proof - Wikipedia.

Paraphrasing, In the criminal case, the jury was asked “Did the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the murder”

In the civil case, the jury was asked “has the plaintiff proven that a preponderance of the evidence (i.e. that it is more likely than not) that the defendant injured the plaintiffs (the family) by causing the wrongful death of the victims”

Ignoring issues of the difference in elements between the civil claim and the criminal charges, let’s imagine that the evidence showed that it was 70% likely that the guy on trial killed the victims.

In that situation, it is more likely than not that he killed the victim.
It is probably not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. (say, you’d need 90-95% certainty).

If you can’t understand why a reasonable jury might therefore acquit on the first and find liability on the second, I’m not sure what more I can say.

Again, you also seem to assume that the evidence was the same. Not necessarily true. The evidence presented in each trial depends on what the lawyers decide to introduce. It is entirely possible that the plaintiff in a civil trial offers some piece of evidence not available to the prosecutor. (I have no idea if this happened here).

I’m not sure a civil jury has to make that presumption-the presumption of innocence is a right of criminal defendants.

However, let’s be specific-even if the civil jury had to make a presumption, they had to presume he didn’t murder his ex-wife. Murder is a type of wrongful death-but not the only one.

Also, if this verdict wasn’t possible under the law the civil judgment would have been thrown out on appeal promptly

They interpreted the evidence offered by the plaintiff in light of the law and burden of proof. Their basis was, presumably, “the evidence is sufficient to prove that he did kill her to the level of confidence necessary in a civil trial”

Even if they did, why is it a problem? Can’t something be probably true without being certainly true, given a certain set of evidence?

\IANAL, and this post should not be taken as legal advice of any kind whatsoever.

46

Well, let’s start with the premise that someone can be found not guilty when he actually did it. Let’s call him Dave.

Wouldn’t it be absurd to have a set of rules where the whole world would have to say Dave was innocent when, the day after his trial, he held a press conference to confess, with photos, video, eyewitnesses, and so on?

Arguments about the whole world holding Dave to be innocent only make sense if he couldn’t be guilty. We can find cases where that’s just not true factually.

I don’t know much about slander-except that the first amendment makes it pretty hard to slander a public figure. Also, common sense again says that if the fact is that Dave did commit the crime, he shouldn’t be able to sue somebody for saying he did it–and argue it was a malicious falsehood.

And again, from a practical point of view–O.J. had fantastic lawyers in 1995. If he really could defeat the civil suit because he was found innocent, don’t you think he would have?

47

I’ve been reading this thread with some sense of frustration at the attempts to answer the OP, and this “explanation” of Step Five is the reason.

So, I understand the difference between the-state-prosecuting-for-murder and the-Goldmans-suing-for-harm. But what you left out of this otherwise good explanation is exactly what was the question that the civil jury was asked? Something like “Did OJ inflict injury on the Goldmans”? Ok, but then through what actions (or inactions), exactly?

That the lack of their son inflicts harm on the Goldmans I understand. But doesn’t the verdict in the civil trial mean that the jury found that OJ was responsible for that injury? And since the injury is due to the lack of the son, doesn’t that mean that the jury found that OJ was responsible for that lack? Or in other words, that OJ was responsible for Ronald Goldman no longer being alive? Or in other words, that OJ was responsible for Ronald’s death? Or in other words, that OJ killed Ronald (or, through some inaction, caused Ronald to die)?

So the question of harm to the Goldmans is, when you strip away all the legal mumbo-jumbo, just some layer(s) of indirection from the real question: Did OJ kill Ronald Goldman? I mean, is there some way in which the jury could find that OJ harmed the Goldmans, but also did not kill their son?

And please, no more analogies about birds and car wrecks. I’d like to know how, in the specific OJ civil case, the finding of the jury could mean anything other than that OJ killed Ronald Goldman.

48

One thing to keep in mind, in a crimianl trial its is the defendent vs. the state )the “people”). Th relatives of the victims are allowed to attend, but it is the state who is the aggrieved party. As to why OJ Simpson’s legal team ere allowed to put the LAPD on trial, that is another story.
I don’t know wht Fred Goldman could not have the murder trial overtured, on the basis of incompetent jurors.

49

The difference, and all the arguments presented for it, doesn’t make any sense to me.

Why doesn’t “If the state shows by a preponderance of the evidence that you committed a crime then it makes sense that the court rule in the state’s favor” make as much sense as what you said?

Why does it somehow make sense that “we prefer that some guilty persons may go free than some innocent persons may be punished” when the punishment is “only” money?

I don’t get it. I don’t see why in civil cases it’s so obvious that both parties should be equal. There is an inherent inequality from the start: one person brought the suit against the other. I’m sitting here minding my own business and someone decides to sue me, why should we be equal before the court? I understand that we are, and that it’s been that way for a long time, I just don’t agree that it’s so obvious that that’s somehow fair.

I fail to see why the burden of proof shouldn’t be on the party bringing the suit, just as it’s on the state when prosecuting a crime. Why shouldn’t the party bringing the suit have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I owe him that money? Where does the law get off deciding that time in jail is a worse punishment than losing one’s life savings, and then establishing relative burdens of proof based on that belief?

Would our society really – really? – be worse off if civil trials required a higher standard of proof for the plaintiff than for the defendant?

50

It generally is. The Plaintiff has the burden to meet their burden of proof, otherwise the Defendant is found not liable. It’s just that the burden is lower in a civil case.

The reason the burden is lower, is that people are less restrained among themselves, than the Government is restrained from acting against the people.

51

The problem that I have with civil suits, and with examples such as yours, is that someone may be charged with something unfounded when the plaintiff’s case may be frivolous. If the guy is ordered to pay $5,000 for a crime he did not commit… well, what if the plaintiff is just overly sensitive? Nobody should have to pay for senstive feelings, or because someone was offended. Of course a judge can throw it out if he/she finds it frivolous, but I fear that defendents suffer more often than we think because of insensitivity on the plaintiff side.

Also, OJ wasn’t just sued because of wrongful death. They gave a judgement of $33,000,000 dollars. *Thirty three million dollars. *That’s a money grab pure and simple. Nothing really civil about that either.

Civil law sounds good on the surface, but is plauged with big problems IMO.

52

Well, several of us are trying to explain it to you. You can refuse to accept it but you are not going to change the world so you better adapt. Millions of people, including millions of experts, not only understand it but believe it is pretty much the best system so if you want to refuse to accept it or refuse tio understand it you are on your own.

Because society has accepted that is not a good idea and we have decided that we demand a higher burden of proof in criminal trials. Everybody seems to understand it and accept it. You are free to disagree.

Now suppose someone owes you money and won’t pay you. Do you think it is fair that you have to go to a burden of “beyond a reasonable doubt”? Or do you think it should be enough that you prove by a preponderance of the evidence? You can decide whatever you want but, again, when your world view differs basically and significantly from what all society around you has deemed best for centuries then you are the one left out. You are not going to change the view of all western societies. If I were in such position I would rather try to understand why the rest of the world has come to a different conclusion than to argue because, again, there is no chance the entire world is going to change to see it your way.

53

This is called “the eggshell plaintiff” and the jury cannot take the special sensitivities of such a person into account. They must find that “a reasonable person” would have experienced harm.

54

Is “reasonable person” defined in civil cases?

55

It would be part of the jury instructions (I can’t seem to find an example to link to, but I seem to recall in New York it includes the words “a person of ordinary firmness”).

Ultimately, the jury gets to decide what is reasonable. Thus is the agony and the ecstasy of a jury trial. I believe only 10% of cases ever go to a trial.

56

Clear answer (I’m a non-lawyer, and haven’t read any of the legal filings in the civil suit–but that may give you a better chance of a non mumbo-jumbo answer)

It seems that, in principle, you’re right. The jury in the civil case is being asked to find that OJ killed Ronald Goldman.

I might ask–so what?

First, the jury is making their findings under different standards. It’s not inconsistent to say “the evidence proves that OJ was probably the killer, but not certainly the killer.”

Our system makes the distinction- In a criminal case, we demand more proof than in a civil case-and it’s entirely possible to have enough evidence to win a civil case, but not to win a criminal case.

Second, as I understand it, murder is one kind, but not the only kind of wrongful killing (say I leave a piano on a ledge. It falls off and kills someone because I wasn’t taking enough care. I have no intent to kill-so it’s not murder. But surely someone should still be able to sue me because I caused death through my own negligence).
So in the civil case, the jury probably didn’t need to find that OJ murdered Ron goldman-just that he wrongfully killed him.

I thought it was more like 1% or 0.5%. Jury trials are rare

57

On the other hand, there’s the “eggshell-skull” rule. Stated in general terms, it says that if A intentionally and wrongfully causes harm to B, it doesn’t matter that A only intended to do a little bit of harm–B gets to sue for all his injury, even if it’s much more serious than A had intended. The principle is that A should bear the risk that the person he harmed was a lot more fragile than he believed-he chose to do the wrongful act.

58

Remember that there’s another inherent inequality in a civil suit. The person who brought the suit claims that he’s been injured by someone who had no right to do so, and so the law ought to put him back in his rightful position.

When someone’s actually been injured, making a civil suit harder makes it harder to get back to where he ought to be, and makes it easier to get away with injuring someone else. It’s a balance—if a jury gets it wrong by awarding damages, it hurts the defendant, but if a jury gets it wrong by not awarding damages, the person who brought the suit is hurt (or to be precise, is denied his right to make the person who injured him put him back in his rightful position).

Also, as has been noted by others, in a civil suit, the burden of proof is still on the person suing. The difference isn’t who bears the burden, but what the burden is–how much the person with the burden needs to prove.

In a criminal suit, the system is trying to punish a wrongdoer, not to make him compensate the person he harmed. So when a criminal jury finds someone guilty wrongly, he’s fined/sentenced to prison/given the death penalty. When a criminal jury finds someone innocent wrongly, people may not like it, but it doesn’t hurt anyone in particular.

In my opinion, it’s absurd not to have a higher standard of proof in the criminal system, where getting it wrong might involve putting an innocent person to death, than in the civil system, where the outcome of an error is that someone is out money when they shouldn’t be.

IANAL.

59

It wouldn’t necessarily be a problem (even though I personally think it is) but that was the essence of my question. Was it really a different question or essentially the same question with a difference standard for evidences?

60

I’m wasn’t stating he could under American law. I was just giving an example of a situation where “society at large has to hold him innocent” would be meaningful with real legal consequences.