No one appears to be arguing that every criminal trial should be followed by a civil one. For one thing, many defendants have no assets to take and so suing them would be fruitless. For another, some criminal defendants are ordered to pay restitution as part of sentencing. For another, in many instances the amount of damages a plaintiff could reasonably expect to recover (say, from a purse snatching with no physical injury involved) is so low as to make a lawsuit a waste of time and money.
I’m not really understanding why the argumentativeness from you. You asked a factual question and were given a factual answer, and now you seem to want us to provide justification for the two-pronged structure of the American criminal and civil legal systems.
I’m not sure where my happiness with a legal reality fits into the factual inquiry before us. I guess I don’t really think about it enough to have sersious emotional responses to this aspect of tort law. Does that help?
All I’m saying is getting charged with a crime does not insulate the criminal from financial responsiblity for his actions. As others have noted, it’s unlikely that every criminal trial would be followed by a civil trial. There are a few reasons for this:
As others have noted, few convicted felons have assets that would make it worthwile to sue them.
Some crimes do no permanent harm. Take your shoplifting example. Let’s assume the most common factual situation. The shoplifter is apprehended leaving the store. The goods are recovered. The goods might or might not be used as evidence, but the merchant gets them back. The merchant has lost little. There is little reason for the merchant to sue the shoplifter, even though he might have a couple of technical causes of action. OTOH, this article describes a pilot program from the UK: Shoplifters to be sued ; and see, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=wa&vol=2004_app/525905maj&invol=3 (minor required to make restitution to father who paid $100 civil penalty for his son’s shoplifting).
Slightly off-topic, but I’m curious whether there is anything unique about US law in this regard, or is this same set of circumstances is possible under the civil-law systems in Europe? In France or Germany, for instance, can a victim of a crime sue the alleged criminal for damages, independent of any criminal prosecution undertaken by public authorities?
Unfortunately the civil suit has been perverted to the point where it is now used to get even with people you think got off.
The newest thing is to go after convicted criminals for their prison wage. For instance Jeffery Dahmer made 25¢ a day in jail. His victims families sued and won this money. Now since Dahmer is so evil it’s easy to say “well he deserved it.” But that misses the point.
The point of a criminal trial is to punish the victim. The families of Dahmer’s victims didn’t like the fact Wisconsin had no death penalty so they sued again. Now taking away 25¢ from Dahmer doesn’t accomplish anything. It wasted the courts time and the hogwash about a “symbolic victory” is misplaced.
The point of a civil trial it to use money to compensate someone accordingly. That 25¢ divided by 17 families is nothing. It’s not going to help one bit. The real purpose was to deny Dahmer any money inside so he couldn’t buy coffee and cigarettes. Again you may say, fine Dahmer deserved it, but the point it, the civil trial was perverted to get an extra dig at Dahmer, not to restore or compensate a victim.
So while it used to be one thing the civil trial really has become (since the government started using money siezures in the mid 80s) just one more avenue to get back at someone.
Remember our criminal system isn’t about justice, it’s about revenge and punishment.
The clear division between civil and criminal systems is ultimately derived from the English common law. The US shares this feature with other countries with the common law tradition, such as England & Wales, Canada, Australia, etc.
In civil countries, I believe that the victims of crime can participate in the criminal trial with standing to advance their own arguments and seek a personal remedy, if the accused is convicted. But we need Schnitte to pop in and explain how the civil systems treat this issue.
Not exactly shop lifting but the department store (now defunct Monkey Ward) I worked for in college had a group of employees operating a theft and fraud ring. Besides criminal charges, the store brought a civil suit to recover some of the losses.
Also, it’s fairly common for the criminal sentence for shoplifting to include a provision requiring the shoplifter to pay restitution to the store. Because frequently, even though recovered, the merchandise is no longer saleable, or must be sold at a reduced price.
For example, if the person shoplifts a piece of clothing by wearing it under their own clothes, that clothing can no longer be sold as a ‘new’ item. (Most stores won’t sell it at all.)
Or if a shoplifter takes an item out of the original packaging in order to conceal it in a pocket or similar–since it’s out of the original packaging, often the store can’t sell it for full price any more. Customers are often reluctant to purchase items that have been opened and then put back.
Leaving aside the political screed aspects of the above, the families of Dahmer’s victims sued, not to gain his prison wages, but to secure his estate. They had planned to auction his possessions to raise money, but public outcry against the notion quashed their plans. Ultimately his possessions were purchased for about a half-million by a civic organization and were destroyed.
The civil courts can be used to punish any one who did it but who manages to escape justice in a criminal trial. Not that I’m giving any names or even initials.
