Last week (March 15), the Michigan federal Judge hearing the Clean Water Act case against John Rapanos sentenced him to three years probation, 200 hours of community service and a fine. According to the Associated Press, Mr. Rapanos has already completed the sentence.
The Judge was able to prevail in his goal (see prior Post under the category "Wetlands", listed in the right-hand column of this Blog) of lightly sentencing Mr. Rapanos despite the Sixth Circuit's earlier directive to impose prison time. This outcome became available because the US Supreme Court recently invalidated new, stringent sentencing rules and said that the rules could only be used as guidelines. Armed with new discretion, the Judge acted as indicated. Quoting from the Associated Press report:
The judge refers to the case as "the sandman case" because Rapanos was convicted of moving sand on his property. He questioned how the government could demand prison for such a violation while the captain of the Exxon Valdez, which spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989, was sentenced to community service for negligence.
"I'm finding that the average United States citizen is incredulous that it can be a crime for which the government insists on prison for a person to move sand from one end of his property to another end of his property," he said.
Mr. Rapanos and his wife still face civil penalties, however; additionally, although not mentioned in the AP report, one presumes that Mr. Rapanos intends to continue to contest his underlying criminal conviction. Presumably, then, the Rapanos' prosecution of a Petition to the US Supreme Court for a hearing (again, see earlier Post) will continue.
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