People are governed by laws that are either set by the community or the state. In many cases criminal law is the most common type of law that people are familiar with. There is another type of law called the civil law, which is not known to many people. But sometimes people are forced to deal with civil laws. In this regard, this paper analyses the differences between these two types of law. Criminal laws are constituted to maintain law and order and to safeguard the society. In criminal law, a government agency files the litigation, which is known as prosecution. During a criminal trial, the jury strives to find out guilt or innocence (Michaelk, 2009). In civil law, rights of individuals must be respected. A civil law proceeding aims to determine if individual’s rights were violated. In most scenarios, there exist no crimes. If any, a separate court is required to handle them. The person submitting the lawsuit is the plaintiff and the accused person or group is the defendant. Normally, a judge hears civil cases (Lippman, 2010).
Punishment involved in the two cases brings about their fundamental difference. In the case of criminal law, a person found guilty may be jailed, fined by the government, or in extreme cases, executed by death sentence. According to Worldwide Legal Directories (2010), the United States consists of Criminal Statutes, which handle punishments. Crimes are classified as misdemeanors, which have a maximum possible jail sentence of one year, and felonies, which are extreme crimes that require more than one year imprisonment (Standler, 1998). In contrast, a defendant in civil law cannot be jailed, but he or she is required to pay for the losses inflicted on the plaintiff. Sometimes the defendants must pay punitive damages if their deeds were found to be intentional or of negligence.
Another difference is the burden of proof. In criminal law, the state must provide evidence that the accused is guilty. The law assumes that the defendant is innocent until he or she is proven guilty. The state must verify that the accused person satisfies each component of the statutory meaning of the crime, and his or her participation is “beyond reasonable doubt”. In civil law, the claimant must prove the crime beforehand. But in several cases the defendant takes the burden when he or she wants to refute the plaintiff’s evidence (Lippman, 2010).
In some instances, there is need to protect the defendants in the criminal litigation. The U.S constitution consists of several protections. These include prohibition against unfair searches and protection against jeopardy; Amendment V. In many cases, the civil law does not offer protection to defendants (Standler, 1998). For instance, in criminal case, the police must obtain a warrant before proceeding with searching, while in civil litigation, an attorney may request relevant information from the defendant without privilege.
In essence, criminal courts have more serious consequences than civil courts when a person is found guilty. Criminal courts require the state to provide proof that the defendant is guilty, while civil courts call for the plaintiff to provide proof. Besides, criminal laws tend to protect the defendants during the case proceedings; this is not common in civil laws. It is therefore advisable to have a lawyer who can understand the difficulties in either case.
References
Lippman, M.R. (2010). Contemporary Criminal Law Interactive E-Book: Concepts, Cases, And Controversies. USA: Sage Publications.
Michaelk. (2009). The Difference between Criminal Law and Civil Law. Hub Pages. Web.
Standler, R.B. (1998). Differences between Criminal Law and Civil Law in the USA. Web.
World Wild Legal Directories. (2010). Criminal Law – Guide to Criminal and Penal Law. Web.