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Undersized Grouper Case Lands In Supreme Court
An anonymous reader writes The Supremes have decided to hear a case regarding whether groupers are 'tangible articles' under the Sarbanes-Oxley law. The issue is that the crew of the Miss Katie was caught with undersized fish. A marine fisheries officer wrote them a ticket and put the fish in a box that the captain was ordered to turn in when he got ashore. Rather than do this, they threw out the undersized fish and replaced them with bigger ones. Prosecutors, rather than charging them with offenses of catching undersized fish (which would have resulted in a fine and a small jail sentence), went after them under the Sarbanes-Oxley law which forbids the destruction of "any record, document, or tangible object" and which could result in a 20 year prison sentence, though the prosecutor only asked for two years on this one. Lawyers are arguing over whether "tangible object" here is something that could contain records, or whether it's any object whatsoever that might be evidence. So far in comments, many of the conservative justices, including Roberts, Alito and Scalia, have expressed skepticism as to whether this would lead to overcriminalization for petty crimes and would give prosecutors undue leverage given all the things Sarbanes-Oxley can apply to. They also question whether this was intended in the law, given that "tangible object" was listed in a context including documents and records and appears to have been only contemplated in terms of servers, DVDs, or other tangible objects that might contain documents or records. Meanwhile, Kagan and Kennedy appear amenable to a more literal reading of the statute, given that groupers are in fact touchable and that makes them "tangible objects" under the ordinary meaning of those words.
Except, as the NPR article notes...
Commercial fisherman John Yates and his crew were fishing for grouper in federal waters in
Commercial fishing often results in the product being transported all over the country, and with the fishing being done over a variety of areas and jurisdictions - especially in border areas (no idea if that is the case here).
20 years is definitely excessive for what they indicate would normally be the equivalent of a minor fine (like a speeding ticket). However, the article goes on to note that he was sentenced to 30 days. I'd still consider that to be excessive myself - but not outrageously so considering it was destruction of evidence, deliberate fraud for financial advantage, as well as likely refusing to comply with a relevant direct request from an appropriate deputized federal officer in the normal course of his duties.
That said, continuing the bad analogies, if you're stopped for speeding, don't do burnouts and doughnuts in front of the police vehicle as you pull over - you're likely to find yourself in a lot more trouble than just the speeding ticket...
Everyone knows this is an overreach by the prosecutor and an abuse of the very intent of the law. All the Judges need to do is read up on the history of what lead to it's creation to understand that it was developed purely as a way to ensure that publicly traded corporations weren't reporting fictional financial statements. There is no way that this should have EVER reached the Supreme court, let alone this fisherman being convicted under this law. But, of course, we now have a legal system that prizes conviction over justice.
I also love the argument for why this conviction should be upheld. "The government replies that the "records only" argument would make it a crime for a murderer to destroy his victim's diary, but not the murder weapon." Um... The destruction of evidence to cover up a crime is already against the law (Tampering, Obstruction, etc.). Saying that the Sarbanes-Oxley law is needed for this is just plain silly..... I guess it's a good thing that I am not a Supreme court justice. If I were I would have laughed my head off at the pure stupidity...
FYI: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV... The above are my personal opinions...
This kind of Federal overreach could be overturned by a Supreme Court decision, but that is unlikely. The only real hope is a constitutional amendment limiting the interstate commerce clause.
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Case Study #31027 of government twisting and misusing laws intended for one thing, to attack a completely different class of crime.
This "creativity" is nothing to be proud of.
If you don't like the wording of a proposed bill you can write to your congresscritter regarding your concerns about the wording of a law and have them change it before it is passed. I've done this in the past to some major acts of law and had a good response. Once it is law the authorities can press charges under that law.
If no one has raised objections to proposed laws, how can you expect the politicians to?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The only real hope is a constitutional amendment limiting the interstate commerce clause.
We're going on 80 years of oppression under /Wickard/ - it's not good strategy to hold out hope for something where you'd need to get a supermajority of Congress to vastly limit their own power and roll-back nearly a century of power and bureaucracy.
Nay, the only thing (within the State mechanism assumption) that is having success in limiting Federal power is nullification through initiative measures and that's even only on one very narrow power. Everything else is going wildly in the other direction, over any long-enough timescale.
It appears that the only real chance of sanity now lies outside the State mechanism - /Wickard/ may well have been the point of no return. Every system on earth ever run by power-lusty men has had a point of no return from which it's never recovered.
Be careful of 'hope' - you can die waiting for it to show up.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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