Federal prosecutors in Miami got a smack down with a federal appeals court reversal saying they didn’t do their job. Judge Charles Wilson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the state had not met its burden of proof and tossed a drug trafficking conviction, freeing a man from a 12-year prison sentence.
“The burden is on the government to prove all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt,” Wilson wrote in the opening line. “When a man’s liberty is at stake, we must be vigilant with this burden.”
