United States v. Timothy Wayne Arnett, United States of America v. Timothy Wayne Arnett

ORDER

On November 25, 2003, only two weeks before these eight-year-old cases were scheduled for oral argument before this en banc court, the United States filed a supplemental brief in which it confessed error on the collateral estoppel issue:

In federal criminal trials, the United States may not use collateral estoppel to establish, as a matter of law, an element of an offense or to conclusively rebut an affirmative defense on which the Government bears the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

In our Case No. 00-10170, the confession of error affects each of the counts charging use of a…