The Fish Tale and the Supreme Court: How Applying Sarbanes-Oxley to Missing Grouper Has Raised Questions of Overcriminalization

On November 5, 2014, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Yates v. United States of America. In layman's terms, the issue is whether an Enron-era antishredding provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was wrongly used to convict a fisherman of a crime carrying a penalty of up to 20 years in prison based on evidence that he destroyed some undersized grouper after receiving a civil citation from a wildlife agency.

This article explains the case details and the Supreme Court's concerns about overcriminalization as a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.