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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   19783 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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or perhaps the story itself is fabricated

I (as a mod) do not appreciate the low-key insinuations that the OP is lying, and while I'd have let "your framing might be missing any more details in her favor" go (because yes, that is certainly possible), you have no reason to be accusing him of outright making up this entire story. Do people make up stories to post here? Yes, I'm sure they do, though less frequently than on reddit - I have certainly raised my eyebrows at a few implausible just-so stories posted here - but "maybe this is all made up" is a shitty thing to say just by way of disagreement with the thesis.

you have no reason to be accusing him of outright making up this entire story.

There is a specific reason that I gave, a jury trial would not be deciding if they give him criminal charges or not. It is possible he misspoke or misunderstood something, but the story as it sounds right now is not true, because the civil jury would not be deciding against fraud charges as it would not have the ability to do that to begin with. That was never a potential thing.

And it's not even some weird special super unique jurisdiction thing as I checked that with the bots

Is there any jurisdiction in the US where a civil trial jury would be deciding criminal charges?

There isn't a U.S. jurisdiction where an ordinary civil-trial jury is empowered to decide whether someone is guilty of an ordinary criminal offense as part of the civil lawsuit.

He either completely misunderstood what the jury was empowered to deliberate there (he might have meant civil liability fraud) or it's fake. But it could not have been fraud charges. When someone says they've seen a flying unicorn the response is "you either mistook something else for that or you're lying".

Well, I checked with the bots is there such a thing as civil fraud - "what is the difference between civil fraud and criminal fraud?" - and they told me yes there is and linked me to legal advice and everything:

The primary differences between criminal and civil cases are:

  • Criminal fraud: These are actions deemed illegal by state laws or federal statutes. The state or federal government prosecutes the accused seeking penalties such as fines to punish the behavior.
  • Civil fraud: Civil cases involve disputes between private parties, aiming to resolve conflicts and provide remedies, such as monetary awards allowing victims to recover losses due to deceit or misrepresentation. Civil fraud can also involve enforcement proceedings by government regulatory agencies

I checked that with the bots

You are the only person here who does that, to the point where it gives you away when you use other names.

"Fraud" can mean punitive damages for being deceptive, which is not technically "fraud" as a criminal charge but is something juries are allowed to take into account in a civil trial. You could have accused him of being imprecise rather than going to "You are making this up."

You could have accused him of being imprecise rather than going to "You are making this up."

But I did accuse him of that as a possibility! I said

points to you either being really confused about what was going on (likewise with not knowing the difference in evidentiary standard) or perhaps the story itself is fabricated.

So it's either he didn't understand (or at least failed to properly explain his understanding) what is going on (as they weren't deliberating fraud charges, they would have been deliberating civil liability fraud) or the story was fake.

I listed the possibilities out. We know it's one of those two, but I can't say which one.

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