A jury is expected to begin deliberations Tuesday in E. Jean Carroll’s civil battery and defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump.
The panel in a Manhattan federal courtroom is set to consider Carroll’s allegations that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman lingerie department dressing room in the spring of 1996, and then defamed her in a social media post last October. Trump has denied the allegations.
Here’s what the jury group of six men and three women, whose identities are anonymous to the lawyers and the public, will be considering:
Carroll filed the lawsuit last November under the “New York State Adult Survivors Act,” a state bill which opened a look-back window for sexual assault allegations like Carroll’s with long-expired statutes of limitation.
This is not a criminal trial. In a civil suit like Carroll’s, the jury must determine whether Carroll’s legal team proved that Trump committed battery against Carroll by a preponderance of the evidence.
To prove her defamation claim, the jury must find that Carroll’s legal team proved by the preponderance of the evidence that Trump knew it was false when he published the statement about Carroll last year and knowingly exposed her to public ridicule. They must also determine that she proved by clear and convincing evidence that the statement was false, and that Trump made the statement with actual malice.
Both the preponderance of the evidence standard and the clear and convincing evidence standard are not as high a standard as proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is used in criminal cases. Clear and convincing evidence is higher than preponderance of the evidence, which means more likely than not. Clear and convincing evidence leaves no substantial doubt in the juror’s mind and establishes that the proposition is highly probable.
The jury…
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