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Page Number: 9.0

6 

YATES v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of GINSBURG, J. 

form.”  Ibid. (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 1592 (9th ed. 
2009)).

We  granted  certiorari,  572  U. S.  ___  (2014),  and  now 

reverse the Eleventh Circuit’s judgment. 

II 
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, all agree, was prompted by the
exposure of Enron’s massive accounting fraud and revela-
tions that the company’s outside auditor, Arthur Andersen
LLP, had systematically destroyed potentially incriminat-
ing  documents.    The  Government  acknowledges  that 
§1519  was  intended  to  prohibit,  in  particular,  corporate
document-shredding  to  hide  evidence  of  financial  wrong- 
doing.  Brief  for  United  States  46.  Prior  law  made  it  an 
offense to “intimidat[e], threate[n], or corruptly persuad[e] 
another  person”  to  shred  documents.  §1512(b)  (emphasis 
added).  Section  1519  cured  a  conspicuous  omission  by 
imposing  liability  on  a  person  who  destroys  records  him-
self.    See  S. Rep.  No.  107–146,  p.  14  (2002)  (describing 
§1519  as  “a  new  general  anti  shredding  provision”  and 
explaining  that  “certain  current  provisions  make  it  a 
crime  to  persuade  another  person  to  destroy  documents, 
but  not  a  crime  to  actually  destroy  the  same  documents 
yourself ”).    The  new  section  also  expanded  prior  law  by
including within the provision’s reach “any matter within
the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United
States.”  Id., at 14–15. 

In  the  Government’s  view,  §1519  extends  beyond  the
principal evil motivating its passage.  The words of §1519,
the  Government  argues,  support  reading  the  provision  as 
a  general  ban  on  the  spoliation  of  evidence,  covering  all 
physical items that might be relevant to any matter under
federal investigation.

Yates urges a contextual reading of §1519, tying “tangi-
ble object” to the surrounding words, the placement of the 
provision  within  the  Sarbanes-Oxley  Act,  and  related