The state of California couldn’t convict O.J. Simpson of murder, but the Goldman and Brown families could win settlements for wrongful death. As I understand it, the difference is the legal standard required: “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” for criminal trials and “preponderance of evidence” for civil lawsuits. So why doesn’t the government encourage or assist people to file civil suits against organized crime figures- especially those notorious enough that anyone who isn’t deaf, dumb and blind knows they’re a mobster?
Because the defendant usually doesn’t have any money. O.J was a rare exception.
And those in organized crime are few and far between. I would expect their assets are well shielded.
And in any case, winning a civil judgment against a mobster doesn’t do anything to make them not a mobster anymore. They’re likely to try to pay your damages in lead.
I also strongly suspect that when it comes to organized crime, individual victims would much rather have law enforcement take on the bad guys on their behalf, rather than personally, individually confronting the mob in a civil suit.
A big enough judgment would make it difficult to keep laundering money. How do you explain where your money is coming from if your visible legal businesses have been hit hard?
I was thinking that the individual would be a sock puppet for the government, which would provide legal, financial and protection help.
“Here. Go file this lawsuit. Sure, on paper, it will look like this is all you, but we’ve totally got your back.”
Unless I’m misunderstanding your proposition, I don’t see a lot of folks lining up for that opportunity.
People do file civil RICO actions. It’s rare.
People also file civil cases for “intentional torts” which are often also a crime. Rape, assault, child abuse, even theft. DUI is another example of an overlap between civil and criminal cases.
Most of the time the defendant doesn’t have enough money to make it worth while, but there are exceptions. Also, insurance usually excludes coverage for crimes and intentional torts.
Finally, don’t assume the only difference in the OJ case was the different burden of proof. The criminal case could have been won a certain percentage of time, based on the exact same evidence, and the civil case lost. Every jury trial is unpredictable.
Plus, the plaintiffs in a civil trial had a new piece of evidence: photos of Simpson wearing a very specific brand of shoes. It was clear at the criminal trial that someone on the scene was wearing that brand of shoes and stepped in some blood. Simpson denied every having such ugly shoes of that brand. Then, a sports photographer was going through some old shots he had of Simpson from about that time, walking on a football field and wearing that particular brand of shoes. The plaintiffs used them in evidence for two things: to show that Simpson had a pair of shoes that could have left the highly distinctive footprints in the blood; and that Simpson had lied about not having them. Both of those would be compelling pieces of evidence.
You could structure it like one of those cases against a company, where there’s dozens or hundreds of plaintiffs. (I can’t think of the correct word at the moment…)
If you’re looking at a group of 40 names, where if any of them dies, the suit can still continue if they have relatives, and functionally it’s just the government versus you, not the 40, I don’t think there’s going to be much value in wacking civvies.
That’s a class-action suit.