THis in not about politics or even Trump or not Trump. This is about the use of the word ‘conviction’ in characterizing the defamation case involving E.Jean Carroll.
has the sentence: “Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday denied former President Trump’s motion for a mistrial following Trump’s conviction for defaming E. Jean Carroll.”
Is “Conviction” the correct word to use there? I thought it was a lawsuit she brought against him, not a criminal case where I normally think “Conviction” is used.
Please fight my ignorance on the use of that word in this specific case.
It’s probably not your ignorance; it’s probably the ignorance of the person who wrote that story, and used “conviction” inaccurately.
IANAL, but as I understand it, a correct sentence would have read something more like “Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday denied former President Trump’s motion for a mistrial following the verdict of Trump as being liable for defaming E. Jean Carroll.”
This is correct. (IAAL.) That said, the misuse of the term is a fairly minor error given the media’s penchant for misconstruing and oversimplifying legal issues.
It’s a civil case not a criminal case, so “convicted” isn’t the right term. Basically civil cases are for cases of things like slander, libel, breach of contract, negligence, and other things that aren’t actual criminal offenses, and the penalties are in the form of damages being paid in some fashion, not prison time.
So the burden of proof is different as well- it’s a preponderance of evidence, and it can be distributed among multiple defendants and/or be partial liability for the damages as well.
Defamation isn’t a criminal offense, so Trump is just liable for some portion of whatever damages the plaintiff is asking for, as modified by the jury and judge.
An example of all this in action is that famous Stella Liebeck McDonald’s coffee case. The jury found that Ms. Liebeck was 20% at fault, and McDonald’s was 80% at fault. They then awarded her 2.7 million in punitive damages (meant to punish McDonald’s) that amounted to two days of coffee sales, and another $200k in compensatory damages, which was reduced by 20% (her portion of the liability).
The judge then kept the compensatory damages and pared the punitive damages back to 3x the compensatory damages, for 480k.
The key point for the OP is that although Trump was not criminally charged, nor was he “convicted” of a criminal charge… The first lawsuit was about Trump calling Carroll a liar. She sued him for defaming her, because he alleged she was making the assault up to gain fame, sell books, etc.
The jury found as a matter of fact (i.e. they decided that it was true) that Trump did sexually assault Ms. Carroll, and so his claim she lied was defaming her. This was based on preponderance of evidence (civil trial) so does not necessarily imply a criminal trial would reach the same decision. However, for any future civil trials, including her second lawsuit, this part of the decision is now a fact that cannot be relitigated.