海角大神

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that a federal statute passed to prevent the destruction of documents and financial data cannot also be applied broadly to undersized fish caught by a commercial fisherman.

The court voted 5 to 4 in a case requiring the justices to interpret what Congress meant in a law prohibiting the destruction or concealment of 鈥渁ny鈥� tangible object鈥� with intent to obstruct a federal investigation.聽

The majority justices agreed with the arguments of John Yates, a commercial fisherman in Florida, who faced up to 20 years in prison under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for obstructing justice by throwing undersized red grouper back into the sea to prevent federal agents from prosecuting him for violating fish size limits.

In contrast to the obstruction charge, the underlying offense of catching undersized fish carries a few years in prison, at most.聽

In a plurality decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and joined by Justice Samuel Alito, the court said prosecutors could not use the term 鈥渢angible object鈥� in the statute as a catchall to prosecute destruction of any and all types of physical evidence. Instead, the phrase was intended to satisfy a narrower goal 鈥� punishing efforts to destroy documents and stored data, the court ruled.

鈥淭angible object [in the statute], we conclude, is better read to cover only objects one can use to record or preserve information, not all objects in the physical world,鈥� Justice Ginsburg wrote.

In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the court should apply the statute the way Congress wrote it, featuring a broad reading of 鈥渢angible object.鈥�

鈥淭he plurality searches far and wide for anything 鈥� anything 鈥� to support its interpretation of [the statute],鈥� Justice Kagan wrote. 鈥淏ut its fishing expedition comes up empty.鈥澛�

The decision stems from a 2007 encounter in the Gulf of Mexico between Yates and a fisheries officer. The officer boarded the fishing vessel, the Miss Katie, and upon inspection identified 72 undersized red grouper.聽

The officer issued a citation for harvesting undersized fish and instructed Yates to place the fish in a box and present it to authorities when he returned to port.

After the officer left, Yates instructed his crew to fling the small fish overboard and replace them in the box with larger grouper.

When the Miss Katie returned to port, officials discovered the discrepancy. Federal agents obtained a confession from one of the crew members.聽

Yates was charged with obstructing a federal investigation by destroying evidence. That federal crime carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison.聽

A jury convicted him. Yates filed an appeal.

In charging Yates, federal prosecutors relied on a portion of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a measure passed in the wake of the Enron scandal. The obstruction section prohibits destruction of 鈥渁ny record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede or obstruct鈥� any matter within the jurisdiction of the federal government.聽

The specific question in the case was whether 鈥渢angible object鈥� can mean 鈥渇ish.鈥�

In her dissent, Kagan concludes that it can. 鈥淐ourts have understood the phrases 鈥渢angible objects鈥� and 鈥渢angible things鈥� in the Federal Rules of Criminal and Civil Procedure to cover everything from guns to drugs to machinery to鈥� animals,鈥� she said.

鈥淣o surprise, then, that 鈥� until today 鈥� courts have uniformly applied the term 鈥榯angible object鈥� [in the statute] in the same way,鈥� Kagan said.

In his concurrence, Justice Alito said the case presented a close question, but in the end the balance tipped in favor of a narrower reading of the statute.

鈥淎lthough many of those verbs [in the statute] could apply to nouns as far-flung as salamanders, satellites, or sand dunes, the last phrase in the list 鈥� 鈥榤akes a false entry in鈥� 鈥� makes no sense outside of filekeeping,鈥� Alito said. 鈥淗ow does one make a false entry in a fish?鈥澛�

鈥淣ot one of the verbs, moreover, cannot be applied to filekeeping 鈥� certainly not in the way that 鈥榤akes a false entry in鈥� is always inconsistent with the aquatic,鈥� he said.

Although he faced up to 20 years in prison, Yates was ultimately sentenced to 30 days incarceration.

The high court action reverses an appeals court decision upholding Yates鈥� conviction. The case was remanded to the lower courts to apply the opinion.

Joining Ginsburg鈥檚 plurality were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Kagan鈥檚 dissent was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas.

The case was Yates v. United States (13-7451).