I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with OJ Simspon.
I'm not a lawyer, and since there have been high profile examples of criminal not guilty verdicts leading to guilty civil verdicts, I'm sure it's within the rules as currently interpreted.
The fact that OJ or Blake aren't sympathetic and probably deserve the civil penalties they received doesn't change my opinion that this is a flaw in the law system that should be changed.
Trying a person for substantially the same crime in civil court that was previously adjudicated in criminal court seems plainly and baldly unfair. I don't understand why there isn't more outrage at this. Maybe it only happens to the obviously bad, but somehow I doubt that, I bet some small fries have been mistreated in this way as well.
1 comment:
It's actually not all that uncommon. Every element of a criminal charge must be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" whereas civil trials require only "a preponderance of the evidence"
What "reasonable doubt" means exactly, who knows, but it is certainly more than the 50.1% required in a civil trial. The rationale is that we want to be damn sure someone did it before sending them to jail.
Besides, screw OJ and screw Blake, we all know they both did it...
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