Environmental Law Matters

On June 21, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Southern Union Co. v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2344 (2012). The 6-3 decision overturned an $18 million criminal penalty for the illegal storage of mercury on the grounds that facts used to increase the amount of the monetary penalty were not proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Southern Union argued that imposing any penalty greater than the one-day RCRA maximum criminal fine of $50,000 would be unconstitutional under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000). Apprendi holds that the jury-trial guarantee of the Sixth ...