Eli5 – How can someone be proven not guilty of murder in criminal court but still sued in civil court?
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They are two entirely different systems of justice.
Criminal court is a component of government. It is a process that is invoked by law enforcement. Its purpose is to determine if someone is *guilty of a performing a criminal act* and if so, impose fines, incarceration, or other negative responses that are intended to increase public safety, deter the criminal from re-offending, and deter others from doing what the criminal did.
Civil court is a process that can be started by any private citizen by filing a law suit. *There may or may not be an actual and verified crime involved.* Its purpose is to seek compensation or prevent further damage from someone who supposedly has ‘unfairly treated’ you (e.g. sold and cheapened your own artistic works, or slandered your god name) or had a negative impact on your quality of life.
Because they’re different, they have different criteria for the other side “winning” a court action against you. For example, you can get off on a technicality in criminal court where someone screws up an important procedural component or there’s inconsistencies in critical evidence. Or it turns out the wrong charge was levied against you, say murder when it was manslaughter.
But escaping that conviction doesn’t mean there was zero damage caused by your act. Families could lose their source of income if you were clearly involved in the loss of their breadwinner’s life, and that family would experience the pain and stress of their death, even though criminal court didn’t convict you. The bars for success are different because the system is different.
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