Ripple Effects from the High Court's Fishing Case

This article originally appeared in the National Law Journal. Reprinted with permission. 

The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision with fairly narrow facts but potentially broad implications for the reach of federal obstruction charges. Last month, in Yates v. United States, the court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, holding that a statute, which was been widely used in criminal prosecutions over the past decade, must be read more narrowly with regard to so-called "tangible objects" used to obstruct justice.