.... The Manhattan jury of nine men and three women found the former president liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

However, the lawsuit's conclusion appears to have led some to believe that Trump has been convicted of rape and used that understanding to attack him on social media.



A Facebook post by historian James Fell, published on May 9, 2023, which received 2,700 likes, said: "We all knew Trump is a rapist. The jury in the E. Jean Carroll civil trial agrees."



While E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit was a civil trial, the fact that the jury was asked to consider the evidence as to whether Trump raped, sexually abused or forcibly touched her might have led some to believe the matter was criminal or otherwise intimated criminal guilt.

Although understanding the distinction between civil and criminal procedure is quite simple, some of the terminology used in the reporting and commentary surrounding the case has not been as easy.

To assess the accuracy of the claim and the finer details of the case, Newsweek spoke to several experts on U.S. civil law.


To start, it's useful to know what standard or quality of evidence the jury in this civil lawsuit used to make its judgment. Its conclusion was based on something called the preponderance of evidence.

As UC Davis School of Law professor Katherine Florey told Newsweek, that meant "the jury must find that it is more likely than not that the plaintiff's key contentions are true."

"This is a much lower standard than in criminal trials, in which the prosecution's contentions must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt," Florey said. "The preponderance standard could be satisfied if the jury is only 51 percent confident that the plaintiff's version of events is true, whereas in a criminal trial, the jury must have near certainty that the prosecution is correct."

"Liability for sexual assault means that the jury has concluded that the plaintiff has satisfied the preponderance of the evidence standard and that the defendant must pay damages to compensate the victim. There are no criminal consequences to a finding of liability."

The word "liability" is also key. As Notre Dame Law School professor Jay Tidmarsh, an expert in complex civil litigation and civil procedure, told Newsweek, "civil cases do not speak of 'guilt' or 'innocence'" but instead "use the language 'liable' or 'not liable,'" as reporting of the jury's verdict repeated.

"So it is accurate to say that Donald Trump was liable for battery and defamation, but not that he was found guilty of battery and defamation.".....

....."Even though this was not a criminal verdict and even though the verdict did not extend to rape, the verdict tells us that a unanimous jury of Trump and Carroll's peers found her credible and found it more likely than not that Trump sexually assaulted her.

"It is also telling that the verdict came quickly. One thing we often forget is that a jury of our peers is so important that we have a constitutional right to such a jury in federal courts not just for criminal trials, but also for civil trials like this one.".......

......Trump was found, by a jury, liable for battery, a civil tort, based on the preponderance of evidence provided by E. Jean Carroll that he sexually abused her but not that he raped her.

He was not found "guilty" as the suit was a civil trial, which entails no criminal conviction.

If the evidence provided by Carroll was given to a criminal jury, it might have come to other conclusions. That it was not found at a civil trial (based on the preponderance of evidence) that he raped Carroll does not mean that a criminal trial would make the same conclusion, although the evidential standards would be higher.

"A judge has now clarified that ... what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood."

Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 18^th, 2024 at 2:49pm:





No Rape.....Just Sexual Abuse as found by the jury.......

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 18^th, 2024 at 4:51pm:




No, & I'm glad to see she wasn't raped.  ...

[Just Sexual Abuse as found by the jury...

Panther wrote on Mar 18^th, 2024 at 5:59pm:


Oh, but she was.  She was raped by Donald J. Trump.

"A judge has now clarified that ... what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood."

Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll

https://i.imgflip.com/7l6157.jpg

Karnal wrote on Mar 18^th, 2024 at 6:34pm: