U.S. v. GOMEZ, 2009 WL 2633039, (11th Cir. August 28, 2009)
The Eleventh Circuit vacated the defendant’s conviction for aggravated identity theft and remanded the case back to the district court because the district court erred when it found harmless the failure to include all statutory elements of the offense in the jury instruction. The defendant argued on appeal that the government failed to prove that he knew the identification he used belonged to another person. The defendant’s proposed jury charge read: “the term ‘knowingly’…means knowledge by the defendant that the identification belonged to a real person.” However, the district court refused to read the instruction because it stated that knowledge was not a requirement in the Eleventh Circuit. The appellate court held that the jury could have found that the government failed to prove that the defendant knew the identification documents he used belonged to another person because the defendant contested this issue.
