Term: 2014
Docket: 13-7451
Yates v. United States
- Pro
13-7451 YATES V. UNITED STATES DECISION BELOW: 733 F.3d 1059 LIMITED TO QUESTION 1 PRESENTED BY THE PETITION. CERT. GRANTED 4/28/2014 QUESTION PRESENTED: QUESTION 1: In the wake of the criminal charges filed against Enron's corporate officers, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Known as the "anti-shredding provision" of the Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1519 makes it a crime for anyone who "knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object' with the intent to impede or obstruct an investigation. 18 U.S.C. § 1519 (emphasis supplied). John L. Yates, a commercial fisherman, was charged and convicted under this anti-shredding criminal statute for destroying purportedly undersized, harvested fish from the Gulf of Mexico after a federally-deputized officer had issued him a civil citation and instructed him to bring them back to port. This petition presents the important question of whether the reach of section 1519 extends to the construction of anything meeting the dictionary definition of "tangible objects," or instead is limited to the destruction of tangible objects related to record-keeping as follows: Whether Mr. Yates was deprived of fair notice that destruction of fish would fall within the purview of 18 U.S.C. § 1519, where the term "tangible object" is ambiguous and undefined in the statute, and unlike the nouns accompanying "tangible object" in section 1519, possesses no record-keeping, documentary, or informational content or purpose? QUESTION 2: Whether the Eleventh Circuit's affirmance of the district court's wholesale preclusion of Dr. Richard Cody from testifying at trial as either an expert or lay witness in the defense's case-in-chief as a drastic sanction for the defense's inadvertent failure to include Dr. Cody on the defense's trial witness list violated Mr. Yates's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to due process, compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to present a complete defense, even though even though Dr. Cody: (1) was listed as an expert witness on the government's trial witness list; (2) testified for the government in a ĂƵďĞƌƚhearing on the morning that the jury trial commenced; and, (3) was under a defense subpoena for trial? නDaubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993) LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 11-16093
In the case of Yates v. United States, 2014, commercial fisherman John L. Yates was convicted under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for destroying evidence - in this instance, undersized red grouper fish that were part of a federal investigation. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Yates by a 5-4 vote stating that while he did indeed destroy evidence pertinent to an ongoing investigation, his actions did not fall within the scope and intent of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which was enacted primarily to prevent corporate fraud following scandals like Enron and WorldCom. The court held that applying such legislation meant for financial misconduct to cases involving physical items or objects would be stretching its interpretation too far.
In the dissenting opinion for Yates v. United States, Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Scalia and Kennedy, argued that the majority's interpretation of "tangible object" in 18 U.S.C. §1519 was too narrow and contrary to Congress' intent when it enacted Sarbanes-Oxley Act after Enron scandal. They contended that a fish is indeed a tangible object under any ordinary or natural meaning of term 'object'. The dissenters also pointed out that this law was designed to prevent destruction of evidence which could obstruct federal investigations; hence applying it to physical evidences like fish should not be excluded just because they are unrelated to recordkeeping or financial frauds. They further criticized the majority’s reliance on statutory context and legislative history as an attempt at judicial legislation rather than interpretation.
