In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358

Case citation

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...

 (1970), was a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 decision that held that when a juvenile is charged with an act which would be a crime if committed by an adult, every element of the offense must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, changing the previous standard of preponderance of the evidence. The case has come to stand for a broader proposition, however, which is that in any criminal prosecution, every essential element of the offense must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., Apprendi v. New Jersey

Apprendi v. New Jersey

Apprendi v. New Jersey , , was a United States Supreme Court decision. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, incorporated against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibited judges from enhancing criminal sentences beyond statutory maximums based on facts...

, 530 U.S. 466, 477 (2000); Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 278 (1993).