The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed a trial judge and its own precedent in ruling that a man who struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors for trafficking methamphetamine is not immune from prosecution on the same charges in state court.

Friday’s opinion, written by Judge Brian Rickman with the concurrence of Judges Stephen Dillard and E. Trenton Brown III, overruled a “rather inartfully worded” decision from 1988 that a dismissal of a criminal charge as a result of a plea agreement amounted to an “acquittal” under Georgia’s statute barring successive prosecutions for the same offense under state and federal law.