On February 25, the Supreme Court concluded that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act does not apply to fish. Passed in the wake of the Enron scandal and intended to address corporate fraud, § 1519 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act makes it a crime to knowingly alter or destroy “any record, document, or tangible object” in order to impede a federal investigation. On May 5, 2010, federal prosecutors invoked § 1519 in a felony indictment of a fisherman who, in 2007, allegedly destroyed undersized fish caught in violation of fishing regulations. The fisherman, John Yates, was convicted and sentenced to 30 days imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release. His conviction was upheld on appeal prior to being heard by the Supreme Court, with the Eleventh Circuit Court finding that the meaning of § 1519 was “plain”; fish, as objects “possessing physical form,” were covered under § 1519, falling within the category of “tangible objects.”

Yates was fishing off the coast of Cortez, Florida when he ran afoul of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Miss Katie, the ship Yates captained, was boarded by a federally deputized Fish and Wildlife officer who suspected its crew was keeping undersized grouper. After four hours, the officer ultimately identified 72 undersized fish out of a catch of more than 3,000, according to Yates. The officer instructed Yates to segregate the 72 undersized fish for further inspection upon Miss Katie’s return to port. Four days later, when the Miss Katie docked, officials found discrepancies between the recorded length of the 72 fish and their newly taken measurements. After questioning, a crew member admitted that Yates had instructed him to get rid of the 72 undersized fish, and replace them with others. Three years later, the Government charged Yates under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for the destruction of the 72 fish. Yates claims his catch was measured “improperly and erratically” and that since his conviction, he has been “blacklisted” in the fishing industry.

While acknowledging that the Criminal Code contains other sections that he could have been tried under, Yates argued that his conviction was contrary to the intent of § 1519, and that Congress passed § 1519 in response to the shredding of corporate documents and did not intend for it to apply to all objects in the physical world.  Yates argued that § 1519 was intended to address a loophole in a prior law, which only made it an offense for a person to cause someone else to destroy documents in order to impede an investigation.  The Government argued that § 1519 served as a general ban on the destruction of all physical evidence relevant to a federal investigation.  The Supreme Court disagreed with the Government, holding that § 1519 only covers “objects one can use to record or preserve information.” Under the Supreme Court’s interpretation, fish don’t count and, in the words of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, “Fish one may fry, but may one falsify, or make a false entry in the sea-dwelling creatures?” The Supreme Court says no.