I've always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that "the state" has an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and manpower.

From the letter:

> we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes I've also assumed that our system of government and burden of proof in criminal cases is also designed to make it harder for the prosecution than for the defendant.

Perhaps this is another case where I'm wrong, but I alway assumed that this was by design. The prosecution has a much higher burden of than the defense.