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Innocent until proven guilty is only for criminal court, civil law is done on the balance of probabilities Les disclaimer: IANALTINLA
by coopdog 15y ago
Innocent until proven guilty is only for criminal court, civil law is done on the balance of probabilities
Les disclaimer: IANALTINLA
- RyanMcGreal 15y ago> TINLA I had to look this one up. This Is Not Legal Advice.
- nasmorn 15y agoHey DDVTWAU (dont down vote this was actually useful) You need to allow people with interest outside HN some time to catch up on the hip new acronyms
- Carlfish 15y agoNot entirely accurate (IANALTINLA also). It comes down to the commonly confused distinction between the burden of proof and the standard of proof. "Proof beyond reasonable doubt" is the criminal _standard_ of proof, while the standard for civil cases is generally stated as balance of probabilities (but is a little more complicated than that) The _burden_ of proof, on the other hand, is pretty much the same between criminal and civil cases. It's the plaintiff or prosecution's responsibility to prove their case, and if they can't do that to the standard required by law they lose. The defendant is under no obligation to do anything more than point out the flaws in the plaintiff's case. Sometimes, though, the burden of proof shifts the other way. This usually happens when the defendant offers some kind of "affirmative defence". For example, if a defendant wanted to argue that a (civil) contract or a (criminal) confession was invalid because of duress, it would be up to the defence to produce evidence that this duress occurred. They could not just float the possibility of duress and force the prosecution/plaintiff to produce evidence that disproves it.