Defamation

JoeyPeeps

In a defamation lawsuit, how do you prove you're innocent of a crime you didn't commit?

Denny_Crane

As in you're the plaintiff suing someone for saying you've been convicted of theft when you have not? Can one ask for one's 'criminal record' and simply produce that?

JoeyPeeps

criminal record is enough?

Denny_Crane

JoeyPeeps wrote: »

criminal record is enough?

No idea I'm afraid. Legal advice can't be given here so generally posts are a discussion piece. I was asking the question to see if one could even get a copy of a criminal record.

The issue one might have though is 'Joey is a thief' does not necessarily entail that you've ever been convicted. The standard of proof in a civil trial is lower than that of a criminal trial. So the eventual defence might be, here he is stealing my tractor on CCTV. Of course it's a lot more complicated than that but the point I'm making is you wouldn't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you, on the tractor driving it away was theft, just on the balance of probabilities.

It might be different if the actual statement was convicted thief - dunno. Just trying to get the conversation started for ya

P. Breathnach

I imagine that if no court has found you guilty, you are entitled to the presumption of innocence in all areas of your life. So if somebody says that you have committed a crime, that is prima facie defamatory. There is no onus on you to prove yourself innocent. There is an onus on the person making the allegation to back it up.

Peregrinus

In a defamation action, all you have to show in the first instance is (a) the defendant said X, and (b) X tends to lower me in the eyes of right-thinking people. You don't have to prove that X is false.

The defendant can offer a number of defences, the most obvious being "I never said X" or "X does not tend to lower people's opinion of the plaintiff". If he wants to, he can run the defence of "justification" - "yes, I said X and, yes, X tends to lower people's opinion of the plaintiff - but I was justified in saying X because X is true". If the defendant chooses to offer that defence, it's up to him to prove that X is true, not up to the defendant to prove that it is false.

FreudianSlippers

Peregrinus wrote: »

In a defamation action, all you have to show in the first instance is (a) the defendant said X, and (b) X tends to lower me in the eyes of right-thinking people. You don't have to prove that X is false.

The defendant can offer a number of defences, the most obvious being "I never said X" or "X does not tend to lower people's opinion of the plaintiff". If he wants to, he can run the defence of "justification" - "yes, I said X and, yes, X tends to lower people's opinion of the plaintiff - but I was justified in saying X because X is true". If the defendant chooses to offer that defence, it's up to him to prove that X is true, not up to the defendant to prove that it is false.

Although unless (perhaps even if...) I had the conviction in my hand I'd never recommend running only a justification defence on this scenario. Honest opinion is more than enough of a defence hypothetically.

Peregrinus

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Although unless (perhaps even if...) I had the conviction in my hand I'd never recommend running only a justification defence on this scenario.

And perhaps not even then. The 1964 case of Hinds -v- Sparks is instructive.

Hinds was a career petty criminal who was charged, tried and convicted in England in 1953 for a jewel robbery (an operation on a much larger scale than anything he had previously been involved with). He persistently maintained his innocence, and several times broke out of prison, only to be rearrested.

During one of his periods on the run he hid out in Dublin and, to while away the hours, attended the lectures of the Regius Professor of Laws in TCD (which in those days were public, and free). There he learned something to his advantage, as they say. He was rearrested in due course and completed his sentence, but his repeated prison escapes and continuing campaign to establish his innocence made him fairly well-known.

In 1964, the officer who had arrested Hinds, one Herbert Sparks, retired and published his memoirs in the newspapers, in the course of which he mentioned that he had arrested the notorious Alfred Hinds, who was "rightly convicted" of the jewel theft. What Hinds had learned at the TCD lectures was that the findings in the criminal courts are not conclusive in the civil courts, and vice versa (which is why, e.g., O J Simpson can be acquitted of the murder of his wife, and yet successfully sued for her wrongful death). Hinds promptly sued Sparks for libel, pointing out that while it was true to say that he was convicted of the jewel robbery, if Sparks wanted to say that he was rightly convicted, the onus was on Sparks to establish the rightness of the conviction.

The court agreed that the onus was on Sparks, which effectively meant that the libel action turned into a re-trial of Hinds for the jewel robbery, and Hinds was able to introduce new evidence which had not been available, or had been excluded (I forget which) at the original criminal trial. The jury found for Hinds and awarded him damages. If I remember rightly, Hinds was later granted a pardon for the criminal conviction.

The establishment found all this most embarrassing, and a couple of years later the law in England was changed to provide that, in defamation proceedings, a criminal conviction is conclusive evidence that a person has committed the offence concerned. Hinds would not now be able to use this method to clear his name in England.

The law in Ireland, however, is that evidence of the criminal conviction is admissible in defamation proceedings, but it's not conclusive evidence of guilt in the way that it is in England. So even if someone has been convicted of an offence, you could still find yourself liable in defamation for saying that he committed the offence, if he can persuade the jury in the defamation proceedings that in fact he didn't commit it.