Posted on 02/25/2015 2:44:20 PM PST by ThethoughtsofGreg
Earlier today, the Supreme Court issued a decision in the case of Yates v. United States. Previously written about on these pages, the case arose when Mr. Yates was accused of violating the anti-document shredding provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, legislation passed shortly after the 2001 Enron scandal, for throwing three undersized red grouper overboard after an encounter with Florida Fish and Wildlife.
In a 5-4 decision, the Court rejected the governments broad interpretation of the anti-shredding statute (18 U.S.C § 1519) and held that a tangible object within §1519s compass is one used to record or preserve information and does not apply to all objects in the physical world, including fish. Further, the Court found that if traditional tools of statutory construction left any doubt to the meaning of tangible object, it would be appropriate to invoke the rule of lenity, which requires that ambiguities in a criminal statute be resolved in favor of the defendant.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanlegislator.org ...
SCOTUS.
>>>The statute says it is a crime to destroy any “record, document or tangible object” with intent to obstruct an investigation. The four dissenters (who included Scalia and Thomas) said that a fish is a tangible object and that statutes should be read literally. The majority relied on the intent of Congress, which was to reach destruction of documents, computer hard drives and the like.
As noted earlier in the thread, this could have implications for the ACA case, King vs Burwell, in which the wording “all STATES shall establish an exchange is the key provision. If a fish is not a tangible object, then can the feds establish a state exchange?
I am ordinarily with you and Scalia on this issue. But doggone it, this guy should not go to a federal prison just because Congress doesn’t read the laws it passes and gives no consideration to the pernicious consequences of their overbroad language.
Are Lois Lerner’s emails tangible objects? How about her hard drive? It would he nice if the IRS went to prison for 20 years. (Emails would be tangible objects once printed) Alternately, we could argue the zeroes and ones on the hard disk or backup tapes are tangible objects.
What is a picture of Sandra Fluke doing at this article?
Oh, I get it. She stinks just like the government’s argument in this case.
I am sorry, but if you are a fisherman by trade, you should know that keeping undersized fish is not permissible. Fish and Wildlife took this in a poor direction trying to overprosecute... and lost. Everyone loses.
#22: Reminds me of the old Dick Nixon, Pat Nixon and Mayor Walter Washington joke. Not very appropriate here but funny as hell for those who know it.
Hint: Slapping it on the bedpost.
We agree on that! No way this guy should be in prison, and the prosecutors who did this should be punished.
Wow! That is incredibly broad.
It should be used to prosecute the Justice Department for redacting documents requested under the FOIA.
Not to mention to documents requested by Congress.
If only he stuffed the fish in his socks.
Too many laws make everyone a law breaker. It’s nuts and dangerous.
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Actually, there have been a number of odd alignments in their decisions recently, last term included.
Think of it as the statute against document shredding. I couldn't tell if you were being facetious or not. :)
It would seem that the fish is documenting the crime and thus evidence in the very least. I haven’t read the dissenting opinion or anything by Scalia who I don’t always agree with or Thomas who I mostly agree with. Have you?
What were Scalia’s and Thomas’ opinions?
They didn't write their own opinions, the just joined Kagan's dissent. Kagan said that, while this is a bad statute and Congress should fix it, the Court has to interpret the law as Congress wrote it, and a fish is a "tangible object."
The US Gov plays “The Wheel of Fish” from UHF
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