A felon will serve three fewer years in prison after a federal appeals court doubted the crack cocaine discovered in the back of a police car following his arrest could have belonged to him.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit took the unusual step of finding insufficient evidence to support a jury’s verdict that Jeremiah Clark, handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car, could have possessed the crack discovered by officers when they removed him from the car.