Maine v. Taylor & United States

A Maine statute banned importing live baitfish from other states, and Robert Taylor (defendant), who owned a Maine bait business, arranged to import 158,000 golden shiner minnows in violation of that law; his shipment was intercepted, and a federal grand jury indicted him under the Lacey Act for conspiring to violate state law. Taylor moved to dismiss, arguing Maine's statute unconstitutionally burdened interstate commerce and thus couldn't support a federal violation; Maine intervened, defending the ban as protecting its native minnow population from harmful parasites and nonnative species. The district court, after hearing scientific testimony on the environmental risks, upheld the statute as serving a legitimate purpose, but the court of appeals reversed, and Maine appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.