Eli5 – How can someone be proven not guilty of murder in criminal court but still sued in civil court?
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You don’t necessarily get “proven not guilty.” You just don’t get proven guilty.
In a criminal trial, the standard of evidence is supposed to be “he did it and there’s no way that anyone could reasonably think that he didn’t do it.”
In a civil trial, “he probably did it, but I can understand why you could think he didn’t” is good enough.
For example, only James Earl Ray was proven under the standard of evidence for criminal cases to have been involved in the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. However, there was enough evidence that he was working with others, including the FBI and other government agencies, to prove a conspiracy under the standard of evidence used in civil trials.
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