Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-7451_m64o.pdf
Page Number: 7

4 

YATES v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of GINSBURG, J. 

Cortez, Florida, Officer Jones measured the fish contained 
in  the  wooden  crates.    This  time,  however,  the  measured 
fish,  although  still  less  than  20  inches,  slightly  exceeded 
the  lengths  recorded  on  board.  Jones  surmised  that  the 
fish  brought  to  port  were  not  the  same  as  those  he  had
detected during his initial inspection.  Under questioning,
one  of  the  crew  members  admitted  that,  at  Yates’s  direc-
tion,  he  had  thrown  overboard  the  fish  Officer  Jones  had 
measured at sea, and that he and Yates had replaced the
tossed grouper with fish from the rest of the catch.

For  reasons  not  disclosed  in  the  record  before  us,  more 
than  32  months  passed  before  criminal  charges  were 
lodged against Yates.  On May 5, 2010, he was indicted for 
destroying  property  to  prevent  a  federal  seizure,  in  viola-
tion of §2232(a), and for destroying, concealing, and cover-
ing up undersized fish to impede a federal investigation, in 
violation  of  §1519.1    By  the  time  of  the  indictment,  the 
minimum  legal  length  for  Gulf  red  grouper  had  been 
lowered  from  20  inches  to  18  inches.  See  50  CFR 
§622.37(d)(2)(iv)  (effective  May  18,  2009).  No  measured 
fish in Yates’s catch fell below that limit.  The record does 
not reveal what civil penalty, if any, Yates received for his 
possession  of  fish  undersized  under  the  2007  regulation. 
See 16 U. S. C. §1858(a).

Yates was tried on the criminal charges in August 2011. 
At the end of the Government’s case in chief, he moved for 
a judgment of acquittal on the §1519 charge.  Pointing to
§1519’s title and its origin as a provision of the Sarbanes-
Oxley  Act,  Yates  argued  that  the  section  sets  forth  “a 
documents  offense”  and  that  its  reference  to  “tangible
object[s]” subsumes “computer hard drives, logbooks, [and] 
  App.  91–92.  Yates 
things  of  that  nature,”  not  fish.

—————— 

1 Yates was also charged with making a false statement to federal law 
enforcement  officers,  in  violation  of  18  U. S. C.  §1001(a)(2).    That 
charge, on which Yates was acquitted, is not relevant to our analysis.