Posted on 02/26/2015 6:52:24 AM PST by Rusty0604
When the Supreme Court announced its decision Wednesday on whether a fisherman should be charged under Wall Street regulatory laws,
Justice Elena Kagan decided to include an unusual judicial argument: Dr. Seuss.
In 2007 in Florida, law enforcement officials confronted fisherman John Yates, saying he had caught several red groupers that were too small. Mr. Yates then tossed the fish overboard. But he was charged under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which sought to punish the destruction of physical evidence in wake of the Enron scandal where accountants shredded thousands of documents.
In a 5-4 decision announced Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was meant to apply only to records or information documents.
But in her dissent, Justice Kagan argued that fish should be included in the “tangible object” category of evidence the law describes.
“A fish is, of course, a discrete thing that possesses physical form,” she wrote. “See generally Dr. Seuss, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (1960).”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
“The Red Herring here is”...I thought it was a red grouper.
Actually she thinks some of the regulations are ridiculous. She usually tries to work for construction companies, helping them avoid huge gov’t environmental penalties. When she doesn’t have a contract with them, she works counting fish for the gov’t.
Sorry, I was trying to be funny. I'll get with my writers.
I can see a purpose for it being unlawful to catch and keep an undersized fish; but certainly not criminal.
When you have more than one undersized fish; I think that is a problem.
I was trying to be funny too! Easier with verbal communication than written.
I know, my daughter counts fish for the gov’t. I know the reasons, but the case that came out of this is absurd.
Thank You, Dear FRiend! :-)
Groupers change sex as they mature. They start out female; they become male much later, if the existing male in a population dies... in which case the largest of the females in the group becomes male. Thus, to protect the fishery and produce as many grouper as possible, you protect the smallest of them, because those are females who will produce lots of young.
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