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Notable Ninth Circuit ruling concerning garbage and the rule of lenity

By Douglas A. Berman

Though not a sentencing case, I could not resist posting about an interesting split criminal statutory law ruling from the Ninth Circuit today in US v. Millis, No. 09-10134 (9th Cir. Sept. 2, 2010) (available here). The start of the dissent by Judge Bybee highlights the legal issue and should provide a sense for why the case is interesting: Daniel Millis, motivated by humanitarian concerns, scattered plastic gallon-size water bottles with bright blue caps throughout the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona. When Millis failed to pick up all of the bottles after Fish and Wildlife Service employees asked him to do so, he was cited for littering on a national wildlife refuge. 50 C.F.R. § 27.94(a).  After a bench trial, a magistrate judge found Millis guilty of the charge, and the district court affirmed his conviction...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 02, 2010 (boomark / email).