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The technicalities can get weird, but it makes a huge difference. In the US (it works differently in different legal systems) even the defendant's basic constitutional rights are different between civil and criminal proceedings. For example you can't plead the 5th (invoke the right to not be compelled to provide incriminating evidence against yourself) in a civil trial because your testimony couldn't incriminate when the trial's not criminal. Any evidence gathered this way in a civil trial is therefore inadmissible in a criminal trial about the same matters. That's why Bill Cosby got his rape conviction overturned on appeal. A lot of the criminal case against him was based on evidence he was compelled to give when he got sued over it earlier, so it shouldn't have been allowed in the criminal trial. The appeal didn't find him innocent, just that the conviction had to be thrown out because the process had violated his rights.
I was referring to the perception from the results of the trial by the public, but you've given me quite a bit to mull over. Appreciate the context.