United States v. Millis
2010 WL 3435003, 621 F.3d 914, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 18339 (2010)
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Rule of Law:
Under the rule of lenity, if a term in a criminal regulation is ambiguous as applied to a defendant's conduct, the ambiguity must be resolved in favor of the defendant.
Facts:
- Daniel Millis was a volunteer for 'No More Deaths,' an organization providing humanitarian aid to migrants crossing the desert.
- On February 22, 2008, Millis and three other volunteers drove into the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.
- They placed full, gallon-sized plastic bottles of purified water along trails within the refuge for migrants to find and drink.
- The bottles were marked with the date and corresponded to a logbook Millis kept with GPS coordinates for each drop-off location.
- The refuge is the last habitat for the masked bobwhite quail and has documented problems with litter.
- United States Fish and Wildlife Service officers observed Millis's vehicle and, upon questioning, Millis admitted to placing the water bottles.
- The officers eventually retrieved seventeen bottles of water that Millis and his group had placed on refuge trails.
Procedural Posture:
- Daniel Millis was issued a citation by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer for 'Disposal of Waste' in violation of 50 C.F.R. § 27.94(a).
- After a bench trial, a magistrate judge (the court of first instance) found Millis guilty.
- Millis appealed the conviction to the United States District Court.
- The district court, acting as an appellate court, affirmed the magistrate judge's conviction.
- Millis then appealed the district court's decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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Issue:
Does placing full, sealed plastic bottles of water on a national wildlife refuge for humanitarian purposes constitute the illegal disposal of 'garbage' in violation of 50 C.F.R. § 27.94(a)?
Opinions:
Majority - Judge Thomas
No. Placing full, sealed plastic bottles of water on a national wildlife refuge for humanitarian aid does not constitute the disposal of 'garbage' under 50 C.F.R. § 27.94(a) because the term 'garbage' in the regulation is ambiguous when applied to this conduct, and the rule of lenity requires that such ambiguity be resolved in favor of the defendant. The court determined that the ordinary, common meaning of 'garbage' is 'food waste' or 'discarded or useless material.' Purified water in a sealed bottle intended for life-saving human consumption does not unambiguously fall under this definition. Furthermore, the broader regulatory scheme includes other provisions, such as one prohibiting the abandonment of personal property, suggesting that § 27.94(a) was not intended to be a catch-all prohibition but was targeted at specific types of waste. Given this textual and structural ambiguity, the rule of lenity mandates reversing Millis's conviction under this specific charge.
Dissenting - Judge Bybee
Yes. The act of scattering plastic water bottles in a wildlife refuge is prohibited by 50 C.F.R. § 27.94(a). The majority focuses too narrowly on the word 'garbage' and ignores that the regulation also prohibits 'littering.' Scattering plastic bottles throughout a protected natural area is the ordinary, common meaning of littering. The potential value or intended use of an item is irrelevant; what matters is that it is a foreign object left in a protected ecosystem where it does not belong. Under the 'pack in, pack out' policy of the refuge, any item left behind is litter. Moreover, even if focusing on the term 'garbage,' the bottles are 'discarded' material once Millis abandoned them in the refuge, regardless of their potential utility to others. The regulation is not ambiguous, and the rule of lenity should not apply.
Analysis:
This decision is a significant application of the rule of lenity, emphasizing that criminal liability requires clear and unambiguous statutory language. It illustrates that a defendant's conduct must fit squarely within the definition of a crime as charged, and the government cannot stretch a term like 'garbage' to cover items that have a clear, immediate, and intended use. The case serves as a crucial reminder to prosecutors about the importance of precise charging decisions; the majority explicitly noted that Millis could likely have been convicted under a different regulation, such as for abandoning property. This precedent may influence how humanitarian aid or protest-related actions on federal lands are prosecuted, forcing the government to rely on more applicable and less ambiguous regulations.
