All the news headlines and verdict said sexual abuse, which was kind of vague, but I just found out today that the judge clarified that this was a matter of legal definition and by the verdict of the trial and the case, trump has been found guilty of penetrative rape.
Do you guys use ‘Preponderance of Evidence’ as the standard of proof for civil cases in the US? In Australia we use ‘On the Balance of Probabilities’. I wonder if there’s a technical difference there.
(Tiny pedantic note but the Burden of Proof is about who has to produce the evidence, not the level of evidence required to make a finding - that’s the Standard of Proof)
Yes we go by preponderance of evidence.
Essentially it’s ‘whoever you Believe more’ in civil cases, which is significantly lower than 'beyond a reasonable doubt ’ we use for criminal trials.
There is also the notion that is not all or nothing depending on the proof for and against a defendant. You can ask for X amount, but only get X-Y because the proof against the defendant weren’t enough to grant all the X amount.
In criminal court, you are either guilty or not and then, if you are guilty, you can have factors that reduces or lengthen the sentence.