So get this. Two men on a boat believes it has stumbled on an illegal long-line fishing buoy. It pulls up the lines, cuts free several sharks, and even tells Florida Fish & Wildlife what they'd done. Whoops. Turns out the line was lawfully placed by marine researchers with proper permits. So did the feds thank them or ask them to pay for the lines the cut? Nope. The feds bring felony theft charges that carried up to five years in prison against the crew. Jury deliberates for 2 days - longer than the actual trial, and convicts after sending multiple notes to court and an Allen charge. Men: the jury instructions were wrong because thieves intend to profit from their crimes. We didn't.
Eleventh Circuit: instructions not wrong. Conviction technically OK even if no profit. Concurrence: These men are now convicted felons "because they tried to save sharks from what they believed to be an illegal poaching operation. They are the only felons I have ever encountered, in eighteen years on the bench and three years as a federal prosecutor, who called law enforcement to report what they were seeing and what actions they were taking in real time." So I just want to take a moment to ensure that the name of the Southern District of Florida prosecutor who brought this ridiculous prosecution: Thomas A. Watts-Fitzgerald—"taking a page out of Inspector Javert's playbook" (which your summarist knows is a fictional character from Les Misérables who's known for his lack of empathy)—is immortalized in the Federal Reporter. And on fd.org.
The case is U.S. v. John R. Moore Jr. et al., 23-10579 (11th Cir. Sept. 23, 2024).