Commentary
It seemed simple enough as we closed out the 20th century. The role of courts was to apply longstanding rules of evidence to ferret out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In a criminal case, the evidence had to prove the facts necessary to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. On the other hand, in a civil case, the plaintiff’s burden was to prove the facts triggering civil liability on a balance of probabilities.
This remains the case today. It remains harder to secure a criminal conviction than a civil judgment because it is easier to prove that something happened on a balance of probabilities than beyond a reasonable doubt….