01 Jul Legal doctrines and principles must not only be remembered but also used to solve specific concrete problems. Your grasp of the material will be measured through your applicatio
Week 1 Case Analysis (BUS5150 Legal & Ethics Environment of Business)
- Due Sunday by 11:59pm
Case 1.1 Yates v. U.S. 135S.Ct 1074 (2015) – (Pages 8-9 in the textbook).
Address in detail all three questions.
You must be able to apply the material learned. Legal doctrines and principles must not only be remembered but also used to solve specific concrete problems. Your grasp of the material will be measured through your application of legal doctrines and principles to a case.
Case Analysis Guide (Use the Case Analysis Format Provided in the Course Resources – Case Brief, Issue, Holdings, and Legal Conflict) plus the below:
- You must give quality answers that show mastery of the case, using clear logic, and supporting facts. Also, the answers must directly address the case.
- Case Analyses test the understanding of key elements of Legal and Ethical Environments of Business therefore they must be thoroughly addressed.
- You must use citations with references to document information obtained from sources. The key elements of Legal and Ethical Environments of Business are found in the sources listed in the syllabus (it is your duty to search for them, read, analyze, evaluate, summarize, paraphrase in your answers, and cite the authors who wrote the articles, books, term papers, memoirs, studies, etc. What it means is that you will have not less than 4 references from the listed sources.
- Grammatically correct paper, no typos, and must have obviously been proofread for logic.
- Questions must be typed out as headings, with follow-up answers in paragraph format, and a summary or conclusion at the end of the paper as set in the outline to be provided by the professor.
This Case Analysis must be in APA format
Week 1 Case Analysis (BUS5150 Legal & Ethics Environment of Business)
· Due Sunday by 11:59pm
Case 1.1 Yates v. U.S. 135S.Ct 1074 (2015) – (Pages 8-9 in the textbook).
Address in detail all three questions.
You must be able to apply the material learned. Legal doctrines and principles must not only be remembered but also used to solve specific concrete problems. Your grasp of the material will be measured through your application of legal doctrines and principles to a case.
Case Analysis Guide (Use the Case Analysis Format Provided in the Course Resources – Case Brief, Issue, Holdings, and Legal Conflict) plus the below:
1. You must give quality answers that show mastery of the case, using clear logic, and supporting facts. Also, the answers must directly address the case.
2. Case Analyses test the understanding of key elements of Legal and Ethical Environments of Business therefore they must be thoroughly addressed.
3. You must use citations with references to document information obtained from sources. The key elements of Legal and Ethical Environments of Business are found in the sources listed in the syllabus (it is your duty to search for them, read, analyze, evaluate, summarize, paraphrase in your answers, and cite the authors who wrote the articles, books, term papers, memoirs, studies, etc. What it means is that you will have not less than 4 references from the listed sources.
4. Grammatically correct paper, no typos, and must have obviously been proofread for logic.
5. Questions must be typed out as headings, with follow-up answers in paragraph format, and a summary or conclusion at the end of the paper as set in the outline to be provided by the professor.
This Case Analysis must be in APA format
Case 1.1. Hurling Fish Overboard the Miss Katie: Obstruction of Justice? Yates v. U.S. 135 S.Ct. 1074 (2015)
Facts
On August 23, 2007, the Miss Katie, a commercial fishing boat, was six days into an expedition in the Gulf of Mexico. Her crew numbered three, including Yates, the captain. Engaged in a routine offshore patrol to inspect both recreational and commercial vessels, Officer John Jones of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission decided to board the Miss Katie to check on the vessel’s compliance with fishing rules. Because he had been deputized as a federal agent by the National Marine Fisheries Service, Officer Jones had authority to enforce federal, as well as state, fishing laws.
Upon boarding the Miss Katie, Officer Jones noticed three red grouper that appeared to be undersized hanging from a hook on the deck. At the time, federal conservation regulations required immediate release of red grouper less than 20 inches long. Officer Jones instructed Yates to keep the undersized fish segregated from the rest of the catch until the ship returned to port. After Jones departed, Yates instead told a crew member to throw the undersized fish overboard. For this offense, Yates was charged with destroying, concealing, and covering up undersized fish to impede a federal investigation, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1519:
Whoever 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, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
Yates was convicted but moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that §1519’s reference to “tangible object” means objects used to store information, such as computer hard drives, not fish. The District Court denied Yates’s motion, and a jury found him guilty. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the conviction, concluding that §1519 applies to the destruction or concealment of fish because, as objects having physical form, fish fall within the dictionary definition of “tangible object.” Yates, who was sentenced to 30 days in jail and three years of supervised probation as well as carrying a felony conviction for life, appealed.
Judicial Opinion
GINSBURG, Justice
Although dictionary definitions of the words “tangible” and “object” bear consideration in determining the meaning of “tangible object” in §1519, they are not dispositive. Whether a statutory term is unambiguous “is determined [not only] by reference to the language itself, [but also by] the specific context in which that language is used, and the broader context of the statute as a whole.”
Section 1519’s position within Title 18, Chapter 73, further signals that §1519 was not intended to serve as a cross-the-board ban on the destruction of physical evidence. Congress placed §1519 at the end of Chapter 73 following immediately after pre-existing specialized provisions expressly aimed at corporate fraud and financial audits.
The contemporaneous passage of §1512(c)(1), which prohibits a person from “alter[ing], destroy[ing], mutilat[ing], or conceal[ing] a record, document, or other object … with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding,” is also instructive.
Use of traditional tools of statutory interpretation to examine markers of congressional intent within the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and §1519 itself thus call for rejection of an aggressive interpretation of “tangible object.”
Having used traditional tools of statutory interpretation to examine markers of congressional intent within the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and §1519 itself, we are persuaded that an aggressive interpretation of “tangible object” must be rejected. It is highly improbable that Congress would have buried a general spoliation statute covering objects of any and every kind in a provision targeting fraud in financial record-keeping.
Reversed.
ALITO, Justice, Concurring
[T]hough the question is close, traditional tools of statutory construction confirm that John Yates has the better of the argument. Three features of 18 U.S.C. § 1519 stand out to me: the statute’s list of nouns, its list of verbs, and its title. Although perhaps none of these features by itself would tip the case in favor of Yates, the three combined do so. Start with the nouns. Section 1519 refers to “any record, document, or tangible object.”
[T]he term “tangible object” should refer to something similar to records or documents. A fish does not spring to mind—nor does an antelope, a colonial farmhouse, a hydrofoil, or an oil derrick. All are “objects” that are “tangible.” But who wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if a neighbor, when asked to identify something similar to a “record” or “document,” said “crocodile”?
[My] analysis is influenced by §1519’s title: “Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy.” (Emphasis added.) This too points toward filekeeping, not fish. Titles can be useful devices to resolve “‘doubt about the meaning of a statute.’” The title is especially valuable here because it reinforces what the text’s nouns and verbs independently suggest—that no matter how other statutes might be read, this particular one does not cover every noun in the universe with tangible form.
KAGAN, Justice Dissenting with Justices SCALIA, KENNEDY, AND THOMAS
If none of the traditional tools of statutory interpretation can produce today’s result, then what accounts for it? The plurality offers a clue when it emphasizes the disproportionate penalties §1519 imposes if the law is read broadly. Section 1519, the plurality objects, would then “expose[ ] individuals to 20-year prison sentences for tampering with any physical object that might have evidentiary value in any federal investigation into any offense.” That brings to the surface the real issue: overcriminalization and excessive punishment in the U.S. Code.
Now as to this statute, I think the plurality somewhat—though only somewhat—exaggerates the matter. The plurality omits from its description of §1519 the requirement that a person act “knowingly” and with “the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence” federal law enforcement. And in highlighting §1519’s maximum penalty, the plurality glosses over the absence of any prescribed minimum. (Let’s not forget that Yates’s sentence was not 20 years, but 30 days.) Congress presumably enacts laws with high maximums and no minimums when it thinks the prohibited conduct may run the gamut from major to minor. That is assuredly true of acts obstructing justice. Most district judges, as Congress knows, will recognize differences between such cases and prosecutions like this one, and will try to make the punishment fit the crime. Still and all, I tend to think, for the reasons the plurality gives, that §1519 is a bad law—too broad and undifferentiated, with too-high maximum penalties, which give prosecutors too much leverage and sentencers too much discretion. And I’d go further: In those ways, §1519 is unfortunately not an outlier, but an emblem of a deeper pathology in the federal criminal code.
But whatever the wisdom or folly of §1519, this Court does not get to rewrite the law. “Resolution of the pros and cons of whether a statute should sweep broadly or narrowly is for Congress.” If judges disagree with Congress’s choice, we are perfectly entitled to say so—in lectures, in law review articles, and even in dicta. But we are not entitled to replace the statute Congress enacted with an alternative of our own design.
I respectfully dissent.
Case Questions
1. Explain what Mr. Yates did and why.
2. Describe the terms used in the statute at issue and the history of the statute.
3. Why does the dissent think the majority made the decision it did?
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