The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

Background
Petitioner John L. Yates, a commercial fisherman, was operating in the Gulf of Mexico
when a federal agent conducted an offshore inspection and found that the ship's catch
had undersized red grouper, in violation of United States federal conservation
regulations. The federal agent instructed Captain Yates to keep the undersized fish
segregated; Yates instructed his crew to throw the undersized fish overboard, resulting
in Yates being charged under 18 United States Code §1519. This provision, originating
from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, states that a person may be fined or imprisoned
for up to 20 years if the person "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" a federal investigation.
At trial, Yates sought an acquittal for the §1519 charge arguing that fish were not
tangible objects related to record-keeping. The District Court denied the acquittal
motion. Yates was found guilty by a jury of violating §1519 and sentenced to 30 days'
imprisonment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the
conviction, holding that fish have a physical form and are therefore a tangible object
under a dictionary definition.
Opinion of The Court
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg authored the plurality opinion, joined by Chief
Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, holding that
"within §1519's compass," a tangible object is "one used to record or preserve
information." Among other things, the plurality relied upon traditional canons of statutory
construction including the canons noscitur a sociis ("a word is known by the company it
keeps") and ejusdem generis ("general words following a list of specific words should
usually be read in light of those specific words"), as well as the section's enactment as
part of a statute dealing with financial fraud and its location within title 18.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment.
Dissent
Associate Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy,
and Clarence Thomas, dissented. Justice Kagan concluded that a tangible object is
"any object capable of being touched." :28 Citing the United States Code and other U.S.
laws, Kagan argued that tangible object "invariably covers physical objects of all kinds"
and that the surrounding language of §1519 makes it clear that Congress "meant the
term to have a wide range."
The dissenting opinion suggests that the plurality opinion acknowledges that a tangible
object is "a discrete thing that possesses physical form." Kagan continues this line of
argument by holding that a fish "is, of course, a discrete thing that possesses physical
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