In several cases in America - OJ Simpson being the most prominent - people have been successfully sued after being found Not Guilty. Why is this allowed? Surely it violates the principle of Double Jeopardy?
I’m aware that it’s a civil suit and the test becomes ‘on the balance of probability’ rather than ‘beyond reasonably doubt’. OJS was a high profile case, but if you allow a civil suit for that, why not allow it for cases like shoplifting?
IANAL, but a few thoughts…
Probably not double jeopardy because it’s not the same jeopardy. If you’re convicted of a felony, you get sentenced. If you lose a civil suit, then usually you just have to pay in money. Not really the same deal.
If there’s a civil tort on the books that would apply in a shoplifting case, then it’s allowed. Quite possibly there is, but I imagine that the wronged party seldom wants to pay its own court costs to bring suit on a case like that. Notice that while the state prosecutes criminal offenses, the government seldom presses civil suits in the same kind of situations. IIRC it was Nicole’s family who sued OJ for wrongful death.
A regular lawyer will be along shortly but to make it short and sweet the double jeopardy doesn’t fall into play with the OJ case.
Civil lawsuits have a different level of evidentiary requirement, less stringent so they felt that they could at least get some sort of financial recompense if they coudnt get him in jail.
I think that CrimeLibrary.com covers this.
Well yes, but why is this allowed? If you get prosecuted for murder and are found Not Guilty, you can’t be later prosecuted for manslaughter of the same person.
Criminal trials are “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” The jurers must believe 100% that the defendant did it.
Civil trials are “by a perponderence of the evidence.” The jurers can think that most of the evidence says the defendant did it, so they are probably guilty.
A civil suit is not a prosecution. The state is not involved in making the suit (though they provide the mechanism to decide it). Also you will not be put in jail if you lose and are thus not put into “jeopardy of life and limb” as the constitution forbids.
Beyond a reasonable doubt. I dunno where this “shadow of a doubt” idea came from but it always seems to rear its head in criminal law threads.
This staff report of Bricker’s may be of some interest.
Anyway, the basic answer is that the criminal justice system and the civil justice system have different purposes, even when they are dealing with the same set of facts. One is to punish criminals in the interest of protecting society, one is to compensate people who have suffered a personal loss.
I blame Alfred Hitchcock.
Does double jeopardy even apply in civil cases? If I sue someone and lose, but sometime later evidence is discovered making my case rock solid, can I “resue”?
No, but you can get prosecuted by the feds for ‘violating the civil rights’ of the deceased. In essence they’re prosecuting you twice for the same crime, but using the neat trick of a different prosecuting authority. The Man will always get you in the end, by hook or by crook.
The circumstances under which one can get a new trial or relief from a judgment based on newly discovered evidence are very limited:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule59.htm
and see Can civil judgments be reversed?
From the acquittal of the police officers in the Sean Bell trial that is in the news lately. Which is probably why so many people misunderstood the acquittal.
That case will end up with a civil trial.
If Double Jeopardy barred suit when the defendant was acquitted, it would equally do so when the defendant was convicted. “double jeopardy is precluded by the Fifth Amendment whether the verdict was an acquittal or a conviction.” Helvering v. Mitchell, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=volpage&court=us&vol=303&page=397
What you are looking for are concepts like res judicata and collateral estoppel. Those don’t apply because of the differing standards of proof in civil and criminal cases. Id. (res judicata); http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=465&invol=354 (collateral estoppel)
Indeed. I don’t see what’s wrong with that: the convicted defendant has already been punished by the state.
It’s allowed because even if you are not guilty of a crime, if you have done something that has harmed someone else, then that person should be allowed to seek compensation.
Criminal proceedings are for punishing a person who has committed a crime.
Civil proceedings are for compensating someone who has been harmed.
An acquittal in a criminal proceeding only says “we have not proved that you have committed a crime.” It does not say “we have proved that you have not harmed someone.”
But his victim has not been compensated. Tort law is about compensating those who have been harmed, not punishment (punitive damages present a more complicated problem). In effect, you’d insulate those who commit the worst (most culpable) civil harms from financial responsibility for their acts.
You can by a different sovereign. That is why Sharpton is correct (that’s a hard phrase to type) in suggesting that a federal indictment for the S. Bell cops would not be impossible.
So you’d be happy if every criminal trial were followed by a civil trial? If Joe Bloggs is convicted for shoplifting and sent down, the store should sue him for restitution? And what if Joe is found Not Guilty? Should he still be sued?
You ask as if it’s a novel circumstance. In every shoplifting case, the merchant has to decide whether to bring civil charges. Usually, the amount is too trivial to bother with a civil action. In most cases in which a shoplifter has been caught, the merchandise has been recovered anyway.