9th Circuit overturns "littering" conviction. Bybee dissents

[markbark]

Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction of Daniel Millis, convicted of littering because he left sealed bottles of drinking water in a desert wildlife refuge. He explained that he left them "along frequently traveled routes for unlawful entrants to the United States."

The majority overturned his conviction because a reasonable person might not understand that leaving drinking water for people dying of thirst is littering.

Judge Jay Bybee - he of the torture memo - dissents. Littering is littering, and Bybee finds that the regulation is as clear as a sunny day in the desert. This is the same Jay Bybee who thinks that terms like "torture" and "severe suffering" are so vague that it would be unfair to apply statutes prohibiting them to interrogators who waterboard people and keep them awake for a week at a time, naked and hanging in chains.


PDF of court's findings

--MAB

[chill_wind]

1. K & R. n/t

[izquierdista]

2. Perhaps if they were left for waterboarding...

:shrug:

[alstephenson]

3. This is great news. Justice is served.

The "No More Deaths" group is awesome.

[lonestarnot]

4. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

I would not have known this was overturned but for your post. Thank you.