Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Why Goldmans can sue O.J.Simpson
Even after he was declared innocent
Matt: How can O.J. Simpson be sued for wrongful death when we legally have to assume he didn’t do it? I can understand such a suit if the criminal court declared him guilty, but he was acquitted. What gives? — FOP, the Net
The law sometimes operates in parallel universes. Civil law and criminal law, f'rinstance. What’s real in one world is not necessarily real in the other. In Criminal Country, the State of California on behalf of you and me charges someone with breaking a law: a desperado steals your car, your accountant embezzles all your snack-machine money, O.J. kills Nicole and Ron. The state must prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt,” leaving each juror with “an abiding conviction” that the desperado, the accountant, or O.J. is guilty. According to A. Lemon Tort, trusty M.A. mouthpiece, that’s a pretty hefty burden.
Now let’s hop on the space-time bus and transport ourselves to Civil Land. Here, an average Joe like you or me — well, like you — files a lawsuit claiming some suffering or loss as a result of someone else’s negligence or bonehead action: you trip on a turtle, break a leg, sue the pet shop for not corralling the wildlife; the desperado car thief crashes your car, hits his head, sues you for having faulty brakes; Ron and Nicole die, their families suffer psychological/monetary losses, they sue O.J. for causing the “wrongful deaths.” In Civil Land, the Goldmans need prove only “by a preponderance of the evidence” that O.J. did the deed and that the family suffered as a result of it. Pile their evidence next to his evidence, and the biggest pile wins. An easier gig for the plaintiff, especially since the defendant has no Fifth Amendment rights in Civil Land and must take the stand to testify.
O.J. can’t offer the acquittal as evidence in the Goldmans’ suit because the acquittal happened in a parallel universe, Criminal Country. The plaintiffs are different (us, not the Goldmans), the cause of action is different (murder, not wrongful death), and the burden of proof is different (greater in Criminal Country). So he wasn’t acquitted of the same thing, legally, that he’s being sued for by the Goldmans. The fact that the murder of Ron and Nicole instigated both cases doesn’t matter. But this also means, when there’s a verdict in O.J. Redux, he might have done in Ron and Nicole in Civil Land but not in Criminal Country — completely illogical to us untutored masses stuck here in Realityville.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Why Goldmans can sue O.J.Simpson
Even after he was declared innocent
Why Goldmans can sue O.J.Simpson
Even after he was declared innocent
Matt: How can O.J. Simpson be sued for wrongful death when we legally have to assume he didn’t do it? I can understand such a suit if the criminal court declared him guilty, but he was acquitted. What gives? — FOP, the Net
The law sometimes operates in parallel universes. Civil law and criminal law, f'rinstance. What’s real in one world is not necessarily real in the other. In Criminal Country, the State of California on behalf of you and me charges someone with breaking a law: a desperado steals your car, your accountant embezzles all your snack-machine money, O.J. kills Nicole and Ron. The state must prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt,” leaving each juror with “an abiding conviction” that the desperado, the accountant, or O.J. is guilty. According to A. Lemon Tort, trusty M.A. mouthpiece, that’s a pretty hefty burden.
Now let’s hop on the space-time bus and transport ourselves to Civil Land. Here, an average Joe like you or me — well, like you — files a lawsuit claiming some suffering or loss as a result of someone else’s negligence or bonehead action: you trip on a turtle, break a leg, sue the pet shop for not corralling the wildlife; the desperado car thief crashes your car, hits his head, sues you for having faulty brakes; Ron and Nicole die, their families suffer psychological/monetary losses, they sue O.J. for causing the “wrongful deaths.” In Civil Land, the Goldmans need prove only “by a preponderance of the evidence” that O.J. did the deed and that the family suffered as a result of it. Pile their evidence next to his evidence, and the biggest pile wins. An easier gig for the plaintiff, especially since the defendant has no Fifth Amendment rights in Civil Land and must take the stand to testify.
O.J. can’t offer the acquittal as evidence in the Goldmans’ suit because the acquittal happened in a parallel universe, Criminal Country. The plaintiffs are different (us, not the Goldmans), the cause of action is different (murder, not wrongful death), and the burden of proof is different (greater in Criminal Country). So he wasn’t acquitted of the same thing, legally, that he’s being sued for by the Goldmans. The fact that the murder of Ron and Nicole instigated both cases doesn’t matter. But this also means, when there’s a verdict in O.J. Redux, he might have done in Ron and Nicole in Civil Land but not in Criminal Country — completely illogical to us untutored masses stuck here in Realityville.
Comments