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There's also a difference between simply leaving the fish in the boat and actively throwing them out and trying to replace them (which he did). His "maintenance" burden is very small here -- it's not like the government was demanding he preserve them for years, only till he came ashore. As for why not seize them immediately? There are all manner of reasonable answers, such as the citing official not actually having the means to seize them on his boat (think tiny patrol craft vs giant fishing trawler here).
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# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:07 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 10:33 |
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evilweasel posted:The defendant has always had the burden of not destroying evidence. He is not being accused of "failing to maintain" the evidence, he is being accused of deliberately destroying it. It's bullshit to suggest the problem is he wasn't taking the evidence to a mechanic or something. Did he sneak into an evidence locker or something? If the state wants to charge him, the state needs to do the work.
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# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:08 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:But why was it in his possesion? If the state depends on the actual artifact to prove its case, the state should seize it and maintain it. If it were some other form of contraband you can be sure they would have. Hell look at asset forfeiture. They seize the poo poo out of that. It's not asking him to maintain the evidence. If they had waited a month and the fish rotted, he wouldn't be charged for failing to put them in a chamber where time doesn't mover forward. He destroyed evidence. It seems semantic, but is actually a huge difference. I think it seems silly because it's just a fish. But fishing policy is HUGELY important. The EU has had multiple landmark cases over fishing policy. Fish are more important than everyone thinks! Also, I don't know the specifics. Just engaging in some general lawyering here. If the facts are different, never mind.
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# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:08 |
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esquilax posted:Why is it pretty dumb? It's worded broadly enough that it may apply to fishery law, and the officers instructed Yates to keep the fish as a tangible record that the fish were undersized, and he clearly did so with the intent to obstruct justice. What's the major legal difference between destroying the fish and destroying, say, photographs of the fish next to a ruler or destroying a document listing the lengths of all the fish caught? I mean, textually he did violate the statute but it does seem like a question of prosecutorial discretion, as Congress was much more focused on document shredding to cover accounting fraud when they wrote this: Patrick Leahy posted:Section 802 creates two new felonies to clarify and close loopholes in the existing criminal laws relating to the destruction or fabrication of evidence and the preservation of financial and audit records. First, it creates a new general anti shredding provision, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1519, with a 10-year maximum prison sentence. Currently, provisions governing the destruction or fabrication of evidence are a patchwork that have been interpreted, often very narrowly, by federal courts. For instance, 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. Other provisions, such as 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1503, have been narrowly interpreted by courts, including the Supreme Court in United States v. Aguillar, 115 S. Ct. 593 (1995), to apply only to situations where the obstruction of justice can be closely tied to a pending judicial proceeding. Still other statutes have been interpreted to draw distinctions between what type of government function is obstructed. Still other provisions, such as sections 152(8), 1517 and 1518 apply to obstruction in certain limited types of cases, such as bankruptcy fraud, examinations of financial institutions, and healthcare fraud. In short, the current laws regarding destruction of evidence are full of ambiguities and technical limitations that should be corrected. This provision is meant to accomplish those ends. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2002-07-26/pdf/CREC-2002-07-26-pt1-PgS7418.pdf Note, I am not saying that I think Yates will win, quite the contrary. It just seems like overreach to be prosecuting the falsification of fish. Edit: I mean, at least some of the Justices must be uncomfortable with this if they granted cert. In a quick check I see no signs of a circuit split in interpreting this provision or any courts holding that it is unconstitutionally vague. Homura and Sickle fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Apr 30, 2014 |
# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:09 |
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Lord of Boners posted:It's not asking him to maintain the evidence. If they had waited a month and the fish rotted, he wouldn't be charged for failing to put them in a chamber where time doesn't mover forward. He destroyed evidence. It seems semantic, but is actually a huge difference. Sorry to drag this into the ground, but I feel strongly about burden of proof. quote:case began in August 2007 when federal and state officials measured fish on Yates's boat that they suspected were undersized. At that time, 72 were found to be under 20 inches, with some as short as 18 to 19 inches. After the boat returned to port, agents re-measured the fish. Only 69 were undersized, and they were all closer to the 20-inch mark. So the officials were on his boat, measured, and found him and cited him. What more do they need to make this stick? They have a measurement, a record of said measurement, testimony of the officers... do they really need the fish to make the citation stick? And if they do, they should really take the fish at that point. Maybe they didn't measure? Just suspect as it says? They're on the boat. Take the drat fish. Forcing the guy to maintain evidence against him after all this other stuff happened is dumb. Citizens shouldn't have to do the states work, especially when it's self - incriminating.
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# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:23 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:Did he sneak into an evidence locker or something? If the state wants to charge him, the state needs to do the work. He destroyed evidence, not because it was inconvinent for him to maintain it but because it was evidence showing he'd committed a crime. You keep trying to pretend this is some noble defense of his rights when it's obvious to anyone with any sense it's not. Ron Jeremy posted:Sorry to drag this into the ground, but I feel strongly about burden of proof. That's nice, you're not discussing the burden of proof. I don't think you know what that phrase means if you think it's involved here.
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# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:27 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:So the officials were on his boat, measured, and found him and cited him. What more do they need to make this stick? They have a measurement, a record of said measurement, testimony of the officers... do they really need the fish to make the citation stick? And if they do, they should really take the fish at that point. Destroying evidence is still a crime even when you don't destroy enough to get you off the hook.
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# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:28 |
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Jagchosis posted:I mean, textually he did violate the statute but it does seem like a question of prosecutorial discretion, as Congress was much more focused on document shredding to cover accounting fraud when they wrote this: I'm taking that statement in the opposite way - that the existing laws were very specific with regards to when you could be charged with destruction of evidence, which left a lot of loopholes. So they introduced a broad, general rule against destruction in order to close loopholes in advance. While accounting fraud was definitely on their minds, I think they specifically wrote the law so that it wouldn't only apply to accounting fraud. Obviously the maximum punishment of 20 years is way disproportionate to the crime itself. But I see nothing wrong with a prosecution in this case resulting in a reasonable punishment to tell offenders "if you get caught red handed, don't destroy the evidence"
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# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:41 |
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esquilax posted:I'm taking that statement in the opposite way - that the existing laws were very specific with regards to when you could be charged with destruction of evidence, which left a lot of loopholes. So they introduced a broad, general rule against destruction in order to close loopholes in advance. While accounting fraud was definitely on their minds, I think they specifically wrote the law so that it wouldn't only apply to accounting fraud. Rereading it, I change my mind and agree with you. I guess the whole thing, at first anyway, smelled fishy.
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# ? Apr 30, 2014 23:47 |
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Jagchosis posted:Rereading it, I change my mind and agree with you. I guess the whole thing, at first anyway, smelled fishy. Imagining this small-time fisherman in the Supreme Court seems like a real fish-out-of-water case to me.
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# ? May 1, 2014 00:01 |
The original fish size violation was just a red herring; they (maybe) just wanted to give him an opportunity and motivation to destroy evidence. If we want to get really about prosecutors going for people and finding crimes later: If their original citation was enough to prove he kept undersized fish, why did they still need the fish afterwards? If it was NOT enough to prove it, how is it enough to prove he ever had more undersized fish than he did upon reaching short? Did they photograph the undersized fish at the time? Or did they just write a ticket for 72 undersized fish when there were only 69 and then claim he had to have tossed the others? Hell, could somebody have miscounted?
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# ? May 1, 2014 00:23 |
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Javid posted:The original fish size violation was just a red herring; they (maybe) just wanted to give him an opportunity and motivation to destroy evidence. Actually they know because someone admitted it. quote:A crew member later testified that some of the fish were thrown overboard and replaced with fish closer to the required size.
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# ? May 1, 2014 00:37 |
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Javid posted:The original fish size violation was just a red herring; they (maybe) just wanted to give him an opportunity and motivation to destroy evidence. They have a witness from the boat that said that Yates ordered them to destroy/replace the fish that were in violation. I doubt they left the fish with him like they were a bunch of piranhas. More than likely they were angry that he tried to put one over on them and wanted to knock him off his perch. With all the evidence though, he's really swimming upstream. He's really floundering here. This particular case is getting a lot of press because it's kind of silly, but also because a lot of people don't like it when prosecutors try to cast a wide net in charging.
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# ? May 1, 2014 00:38 |
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Javid posted:The original fish size violation was just a red herring; they (maybe) just wanted to give him an opportunity and motivation to destroy evidence. Judging from the Circuit Court opinion (I'm not going to bother looking for the trial opinion) it seems that the original measurements were done by a state agent that was deputized to enforce federal law, and they sought to remeasure the fish under supervision of a federal officer. What was sufficient to prove that he destroyed evidence was testimony from his crew that he ordered them to throw the fish overboard, and that the actual size of the fish only became a relevant consideration because of an error by the district court. The court determined that he knew the fish were undersized because he scolded his crew over fish size, admitting to the federal agent that some of the fish were undersized, and his dumping of them supported an inference that he was aware of the size issue. edit: beaten, but more specifics.
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# ? May 1, 2014 00:42 |
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Uuuuuggggghhhhhh edit: okay okay I chuckled at 'perch'
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# ? May 1, 2014 01:05 |
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seems like a classic case of "the cover-up not the crime catching people out".
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# ? May 1, 2014 01:06 |
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KennyTheFish posted:seems like a classic case of "the cover-up not the crime catching people out". You're hardly an objective one to comment on fishermen
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# ? May 1, 2014 02:35 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:Sorry to drag this into the ground, but I feel strongly about burden of proof. It isn't about burden of proof though? It's about destroying evidence. The burden of proof is still on the prosecution. You seem to be equating "not destroying evidence" with the burden being on the defendant to prove his innocence, which is not the case here. Let me give a hypothetical to illustrate. John Johnson builds an addition to his house that is illegal under state law X. The state, choosing to not inconvenience Mr. Johnson if possible, notes the addition and then tells him to do no more home repairs pending a court hearing. Mr. Johnson then renovates his house to not violate any laws. In that hypothetical, Mr. Johnson broke the law. Just because the state allowed him to keep living in his house does not mean that suddenly the burden of proof is on him. All he has to do is nothing, but he instead chose to renovate. The action took place on his side, not the government's. This is the difference between burden of proof and destruction of evidence. It's the difference between doing nothing, and affirmatively changing the circumstances surrounding the case. That is why this criminal charge is being brought. An action, instead of doing nothing, to cover up evidence of a crime.
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# ? May 1, 2014 02:45 |
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Since this is about a contraband, let's say I get busted by a cop with a bag of weed. The cop writes me a ticket and tells me to show up tomorrow at court with my bag of weed. I show up to court minus the bag of weed. Is that also destruction of evidence? I'm convinced by the other posters that it's clear the guy did destroy evidence based on the testimony of the other guys on the boat. What kills me here is that it was completely avoidable if the official who boarded the boat had simply taken the fish. Hell taken a picture of the fish. He's now facing an additional charge because the official didn't do the simplest thing in my mind, which is to seize the contraband. If the other crew had kept their mouth shut, what then? You get to shore and there are no offending fish. Does the guy get off on the original charge? So maybe that's what bugs me. If the state is going to charge someone, they should do the work including taking control of the evidence.
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# ? May 1, 2014 03:49 |
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Transferring cargo at sea is very dangerous so I imagine this may come up more than you might think in maritime law.
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# ? May 1, 2014 04:03 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:Since this is about a contraband, let's say I get busted by a cop with a bag of weed. The cop writes me a ticket and tells me to show up tomorrow at court with my bag of weed.
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# ? May 1, 2014 04:17 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:Since this is about a contraband, let's say I get busted by a cop with a bag of weed. The cop writes me a ticket and tells me to show up tomorrow at court with my bag of weed. "that prison didn't have good enough security, how can you charge someone with escaping from prison if they were able to escape from prison?!?!?!"
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# ? May 1, 2014 04:22 |
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SubponticatePoster posted:It's more comparable to getting popped with a bag of weed, and the cop tells you come over to his to his car where he can get an evidence testing kit for the weed. On the way to his car you eat the contents of the bag and replace it with parsley. The patrol boat is a tiny thing and this was a larger vessel. The agent simply didn't have enough room on his boat for all the contraband fish. The guy is facing an additional charge because he destroyed evidence. When you have broken the law the solution is not to break more laws to try and cover up the one you already broke. Isn't the simplest solution for the cop in your example to take possession of the suspected weed and take it himself over to his car? With the fish too, it wasn't a ton of tuna, it was..70? 20" fish?
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# ? May 1, 2014 04:26 |
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Lord of Boners posted:It isn't about burden of proof though? It's about destroying evidence. The burden of proof is still on the prosecution. You seem to be equating "not destroying evidence" with the burden being on the defendant to prove his innocence, which is not the case here. I think the 'burden of proof' conflation is that cold storage and transport of perishable goods isn't free, and is actually quite expensive. If the statue was against fish less than 20' long instead of 20", it would be obviously burdensome for someone to maintain and provide 72 19' perishables to the court. Nothing to do with the legal term, but someone has to pay for that evidence to get to court and apparently it's ok to decide the fisherman, not yet proven guilty, is expected to foot the bill, which does kind of suck. I imagine it would get recuperated if the state lost their case, or could arguably be deducted from whatever fine is decided if the defendant made a stink about it in court.
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# ? May 1, 2014 04:27 |
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Cheekio posted:I think the 'burden of proof' conflation is that cold storage and transport of perishable goods isn't free, and is actually quite expensive. If the statue was against fish less than 20' long instead of 20", it would be obviously burdensome for someone to maintain and provide 72 19' perishables to the court. Nothing to do with the legal term, but someone has to pay for that evidence to get to court and apparently it's ok to decide the fisherman, not yet proven guilty, is expected to foot the bill, which does kind of suck. Considering the fisherman was hauling the rest of his catch into port at the same time, the cost should be negligible.
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# ? May 1, 2014 05:32 |
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This thread needs some sort of "read the scotusblog synopsis at a minimum before deciding who is right" rule. Also, I'm starting to think I can persuasively argue any case from any side to some of this thread if I can analogize my client to a guy busted with weed.
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# ? May 1, 2014 05:33 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:Isn't the simplest solution for the cop in your example to take possession of the suspected weed and take it himself over to his car? With the fish too, it wasn't a ton of tuna, it was..70? 20" fish?
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# ? May 1, 2014 05:36 |
Gyges posted:Considering the fisherman was hauling the rest of his catch into port at the same time, the cost should be negligible. Opportunity cost of cargo space that could've been filled with fish he could legally keep? Regardless, bleating about costs now is just rear end-covering for trying to toss evidence.
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# ? May 1, 2014 05:37 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:Isn't the simplest solution for the cop in your example to take possession of the suspected weed and take it himself over to his car? With the fish too, it wasn't a ton of tuna, it was..70? 20" fish?
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# ? May 1, 2014 05:41 |
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Cheekio posted:I think the 'burden of proof' conflation is that cold storage and transport of perishable goods isn't free, and is actually quite expensive. If the statue was against fish less than 20' long instead of 20", it would be obviously burdensome for someone to maintain and provide 72 19' perishables to the court. Nothing to do with the legal term, but someone has to pay for that evidence to get to court and apparently it's ok to decide the fisherman, not yet proven guilty, is expected to foot the bill, which does kind of suck. He destroyed it on the trip back to shore. There's no preservation cost issues to worry about here.
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# ? May 1, 2014 06:13 |
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Maybe they were just really, really smart fish and got away?
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# ? May 1, 2014 06:33 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:Isn't the simplest solution for the cop in your example to take possession of the suspected weed and take it himself over to his car? With the fish too, it wasn't a ton of tuna, it was..70? 20" fish? I can't find details on what boat Florida Fish and Game used in their inspection, but I know that in California Fish and Wildlife and NPS sometimes use small 3 man crafts for their routine patrols if it's closer to shore. It's entirely possible that 70 20" fish wouldn't fit on the inspection boat, or even if they had the space that for whatever reason they didn't have the a container and ice on hand to preserve it.
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# ? May 1, 2014 06:41 |
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I spent some time working as a fisheries observer (on the West Coast) and am now doing marine research in Florida, so I have a passing familiarity with some of this stuff. Florida Fish & Wildlife mostly runs pretty small vessels. Their largest boat is 85 feet, so even then, it doesn't have a ton of room for other stuff. 72 grouper is a lot of fish, too. That's probably at least 200 pounds of fish. Transferring anything at sea is inherently hazardous, so even getting someone to board and inspect is a bit of an adventure. The officer set the suspected undersize fish aside in a separate crate and told the fishermen not to touch them, then planned to meet them at the dock. That's basically the smartest, safest way to do it. It's not a case of cost at all, since they'd likely have unoccupied corners of the fish hold anyway, where everything sits on ice until offloading. Incidentally, stunts like this are why as observers, we had to stick with the boat until all the fish were offloaded. So there were times when we got chased in by weather and I had to stay on the boat, at the dock, for up to 48 hours before we could unload things, even though my own bed and a shower were a 10 minute drive away. That kind of sucked. Edit to add: largest vessel I've personally seen FWC using in Florida was probably about a 30' rigid-hulled inflatable, and getting that up alongside the 24' skiff I was in so they could come aboard and see what we were doing was a bit of a shitshow already. That was in calm seas inshore, too. I can't imagine anyone being excited about trying to do that with two larger vessels and then trying to pass a couple hundred pounds of fish across. That's a recipe for getting people hurt and boats damaged. For Supreme Court content, an interesting article on how Ginsburg and Scalia coexist (with some standard Scalia quotes, railing from the bench at how things he disagrees with happen and people just don't find it as horrific as they should, or something): http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/a-view-from-the-court-the-ginsburg-scalia-show/ How often can potential nominees to the court be picked out ahead of time by interested observers (i.e., this thread)? I recall Harriet Miers was an out-of-left-field shitshow, but did people see Sotomayor and Kagan coming? If so, how does that become general knowledge? Is there some general consensus among judicial knowledgeables about "that judge sucks, but this one is going places"? Timmy Age 6 fucked around with this message at 06:48 on May 1, 2014 |
# ? May 1, 2014 06:43 |
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Ron Jeremy posted:Isn't the simplest solution for the cop in your example to take possession of the suspected weed and take it himself over to his car? With the fish too, it wasn't a ton of tuna, it was..70? 20" fish? Waterway patrol boats are minuscule and are basically 2-man deals, 3 with major snuggling going on. Seriously, you know those RHIB boats the military uses, where one guy drives, one has a gun, and like 4 guys are literally hanging off ropes on the side? That's about the size of the typical patrol boat, just add a sunshade and you're good. It wasn't like they rolled up in a cutter and decided it was too much effort to take the fish. They probably would have had a safety issue with a load like that since we're talking a couple hundred pounds of fish.
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# ? May 1, 2014 06:45 |
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N00ba the Hutt posted:For Supreme Court content, an interesting article on how Ginsburg and Scalia coexist (with some standard Scalia quotes, railing from the bench at how things he disagrees with happen and people just don't find it as horrific as they should, or something): "Firsts" are kind of easy to pick out simply because so much of the judiciary is made up of white dudes - Sotomayor was pickable because there was a sentiment that it was about drat time there was a Latino/a Justice (not counting Cardozo), and that was the same "foresight" that made Miguel Estrada so controversial. For the most part, I tend to think that nominees who "everyone" talks about being obvious choices are usually nominees with friends who are reporters or are listened to by reporters (for example, Kagan and Toobin are close, apparently, and I recall that Greenwald was pretty heavy into Diane Wood when the Souter vacancy was up). That's also why Goodwin Liu got blocked for the 9th Circuit.
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# ? May 1, 2014 07:16 |
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N00ba the Hutt posted:Transferring anything at sea is inherently hazardous, so even getting someone to board and inspect is a bit of an adventure. The Warszawa posted:"Firsts" are kind of easy to pick out simply because so much of the judiciary is made up of white dudes - Sotomayor was pickable because there was a sentiment that it was about drat time there was a Latino/a Justice (not counting Cardozo), and that was the same "foresight" that made Miguel Estrada so controversial. For the most part, I tend to think that nominees who "everyone" talks about being obvious choices are usually nominees with friends who are reporters or are listened to by reporters (for example, Kagan and Toobin are close, apparently, and I recall that Greenwald was pretty heavy into Diane Wood when the Souter vacancy was up). That's also why Goodwin Liu got blocked for the 9th Circuit.
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# ? May 1, 2014 12:26 |
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Green Crayons posted:I don't follow. Liu got blocked because he had no reporter friends? People that might get nominated to the Supreme Court often get blocked by the opposing party at the Court of Appeals level to prevent them from getting the experience needed to be a credible nominee.
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# ? May 1, 2014 13:07 |
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Any thoughts on whether the fact that he's currently serving on California's supreme court is providing him the experience he needs to be a credible nominee?
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# ? May 1, 2014 13:22 |
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Green Crayons posted:Any thoughts on whether the fact that he's currently serving on California's supreme court is providing him the experience he needs to be a credible nominee? Possible but unlikely - there's a real prejudice against nominating people who haven't served on federal courts (although Kagan so not impossible.) Bigger problem is that he already lost a nomination fight so there's reluctance to put him into another one - no one wants to have a SCOTUS nominee shot down.
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# ? May 1, 2014 13:29 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 10:33 |
We like Liu though, correct? I seem to remember last time Obama was picking, Liu was a name people talked about on the long-list as potentially very exciting for progressives.
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# ? May 1, 2014 13:42 |