Difference Between Criminal Law & Civil Law
Amanda Wenta
The Paralegal Professional
February 28, 2013

Unit 8 Assignment
The Paralegal Professional
Amanda Wenta

The differences in dealing with Criminal Law and Civil Law are that dealing with someone or maybe a business, who commits violations against statutes. Civil law has to do with lawsuits that are non-criminal such as divorce, contracts, injuries in an accident, and things of that nature. In criminal law, the accountability has to be “Beyond a reasonable doubt” in order for anyone to be convicted of the crime. This means that there has to be a considerable amount of evidence towards the person or company, and that they question the guilt very little or not at all. In this type of case, if the jury doesn’t come up with a unanimous decision of guilty or not guilty, it causes a mistrial in the case. In a civil case, the balance of probability has to be proved that an incident occurred. Once it has been proved, the person or company involved in the lawsuit can be convicted. Basically, in these types of cases, the outcome really depends on who has the best evidence. If a person is a threat to society or what they have done has caused harm to someone that would be considered Criminal law. For example, the Jeffrey Dahmer case is an example of a Criminal case because he was threat to society being that he was a serial killer. If a single person or company is being sued by a single person or company, that would be considered to be Civil law because there is no threat to society and it’s a matter between two people; not between the State and a person. In a Civil case the Plaintiff is the person or company who is filing the Lawsuit against another person or company in court. The defendant would be the person or company who is being taken to court. In Criminal law, the Plaintiff is the person is a witness for the State, so there’s not an actual party. Once again, this is because, whatever the defendant has done, wasn’t just a threat to the victim, it was a threat to society as well. In a Criminal case where the defendant is being accused of a crime the prosecutor must provide facts and evidence that will convince the jury will have no other logical explanation of why the defendant should not be committed of the crime. In a criminal case a person can be accused of homicide, manslaughter or death by auto. This case is something that would be considered to be a criminal case: “Defendant was charged with death by auto (vehicular homicide) after a head-on collision in which the driver of an oncoming vehicle was killed and other passengers were seriously injured. The Prosecution contended that the defendant was driving under the influence of alcohol and introduced evidence of a blood alcohol reading of .16 sometime after the accident. On behalf of the defendant, Mr. Haines introduced countervailing evidence that the blood test results may not have been those of the defendant, and that at least one of the unbiased witnesses at the scene thought the defendant to be perfectly sober. A jury of 12 persons found the defendant not guilty (www.hainesandyost.com/Criminal-Case-Examples).” Reasons that this would be a considered a criminal case is because the defendant was said to be driving drunk at the time of the accident, putting other members of society at danger. The unamimous decision of the jury was that defendant was not guilty due to the test results stating that the driver was not drunk at the time of the accident. An example of a civil case is someone who may have slipped and fallen in a public place, someone who has personal injuries from an accident, someone who is suing another person, or even a divorce. The case below is said to be an example of a civil case: “The liability in this case was hotly contested as the plaintiff fell on the concrete porch of a homeowner who was related by marriage. The fall was caused by a worn down “welcome” mat which was in plain view and which the plaintiff had seen and walked over on a number of prior visits. The plaintiff suffered a fractured elbow and ulnar nerve injury to her non dominant arm and hand, which resulted in multiple surgeries and some deformity of the fingers. The insurance coverage was limited to $300,000.00 and a “Rova Farms” bad faith insurance demand was made prior to the trial. The defendant’s insurance company offered $85,000.00 prior to trial. The case was tried to an “excess” verdict by Steven E. Yost, who also defended/argued the verdict successfully on appeal and on certification application to the New Jersey Supreme Court (www.hainesandyost.com/Civil-Case-Examples.aspx).” The reason this would be a civil case is because the Plaintiff slipped off a concrete porch because of a worn down “Welcome” mat that was worn on the porch. This is also a civil case because this was not a threat to society and the only person that was involved was the Plaintiff and the Defendant.
The two major differences in a criminal case and a civil case is that in a criminal case, the State is the plaintiff who has a suit against the defendant and in a civil case the plaintiff is the person who has a suit against the defendant.

References http://www.hainesandyost.com/Civil-Case-Examples.aspx http://www.hainesandyost.com/Criminal-Case-Examples.aspx http://www.ehow.com/info_8459564_standard-criminal-civil-court-cases.html http://biztaxlaw.about.com/od/glossaryp/g/plaintiff.htm
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Civil_Law_vs_Criminal_Law