Eli5 – How can someone be proven not guilty of murder in criminal court but still sued in civil court?
In: 19
Look at the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. (and this is not meant to say he was guilty or not)
Criminal trial – Found not guilty because regardless of why he brought a gun to the protests, it was only used once he was physically antagonized, and was therefore acting under self-defense laws as they currently exist in that state – and the jury determined that he couldn’t be guilty beyond a reasonable double because it was self-defense according to the letter of the law.
That doesn’t mean that a civil court would necessarily rule the same way. There, the burden of proof only has to be that he took his gun to the protest with the intent to start shit – not even necessarily to kill someone, but just to start shit – and it can be easier to get the majority of jurors to agree that he did intend to start shit and that everything that came after was due to that decision to take a gun to the protests.
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