Difference Between Criminal Complaint Vs Civil Complaint

1. The charge against Peoples was fraud, a criminal offense. Compare and contrast a criminal complaint with a civil complaint. Identify three significant differences.

The three differences between a criminal and a civil complaint are:

1. The civil case is usually the standard proof of “preponderance of evidence”. For the criminal case is usually “beyond a reasonable doubt” to get the standard for proof.

2. In the judicial process in a civil case, starts with a plaintiff of complaining against the defendant and for the criminal case the judicial process starts with violating the law followed by criminal investigations.

3. A verdict on a court case of a civil case is usually economic compensation and for the criminal case are stricter that

include fines, penalties, and jail time.

2. Fraud is an “intent” crime. Absent a confession, the state attempted to establish People’s intent via circumstantial evidence. Discuss the concept of intent. Discussed the circumstantial evidence compiled by the state’s lead investigator to establish intent.

Intent is the intention for the person’s act and commitment the person is intending to do. The lead investigator establishes his intent when he asked to review the proof of Peoples payroll records from the police department and from being a security officer from January 2001 to August 31, 2004 as evidence. The 1st instance was compared by working time and the 478 overlapping hours, but the hours were reduced to 100 hours. The 2nd intent was when the retired officer said that Peoples couldn’t have been in two places at one time.

3. Based on the case summary, do you think People was guilty of fraud? Explain your position.

I found Peoples was not guilty because there was no evidence of intent, also because both payroll clerk and city’s auditor took the witness stand and accepted that all payroll records were “accurate”. Another example was that the officer could get 2 hours of overtime even though they only worked for 15 minutes of overtime.