The integrity of the judicial system depends on the participants' acting honestly and without fear of reprisals. Threatening a judge, trying to bribe a witness, or encouraging the destruction of evidence are examples of obstruction of justice. Federal and state laws make it a crime to obstruct justice.

Obstruction of justice in the federal courts is governed by a series of criminal statutes (18 U.S.C.A. §§ 1501-1517), which aim to protect the integrity of federal judicial proceedings as well as agency and congressional proceedings. Section 1503 is the primary vehicle for punishing those who obstruct or who endeavor to obstruct federal judicial proceedings.

Section 1503 proscribes obstructions of justice aimed at judicial officers, grand and petit jurors, and witnesses. The law makes it a crime to threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against these participants in a criminal or civil proceeding. In addition, section 1503 makes it illegal to attempt the bribery of an official to alter the outcome of a judicial proceeding.

Besides these specific prohibitions, section 1503 contains the Omnibus Clause, which states that a person who "corruptly or by threats of force, or by threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice" is guilty of the crime of obstruction of justice. This clause offers broad protection to the "due administration of justice." Federal courts have read this clause expansively to proscribe any conduct that interferes with the judicial process.

To obtain a conviction under section 1503, the government must prove that there was a pending federal judicial proceeding, the defendant knew of the proceeding, and the defendant had corrupt intent to interfere with or attempted to interfere with the proceeding.

Two types of cases arise under the Omnibus Clause: the concealment, alteration, or destruction of documents; and the encouraging or rendering of false testimony. Actual obstruction is not needed as an element of proof to sustain a conviction. The defendant's endeavor to obstruct justice is sufficient. "Endeavor" has been defined by the courts as an effort to accomplish the purpose the statute was enacted to prevent. The courts have consistently held that "endeavor" constitutes a lesser threshold of purposeful activity than a criminal "attempt."

Federal obstruction of justice statutes have been used to prosecute government officials who have sought to prevent the disclosure of damaging information. The Watergate scandal of the 1970s involving President Richard M. Nixon is a classic example of this type of obstruction. A number of Nixon's top aides were convicted of obstruction of justice, including former attorney general John N. Mitchell. A federal grand jury named Nixon himself as an unindicted coconspirator for the efforts to prevent disclosure of White House involvement in the 1972 burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate building complex in Washington, D.C.

WordNet: obstruction of justice

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: impeding those who seek justice in a court (as by trying to influence or intimidate any juror or witness or officer of the court); can result in a finding of contempt of court

Wikipedia: obstruction of justice

Criminal law

Part of the common law series
Criminal elements
Actus reus · Causation · Concurrence
Mens rea · Intention · Recklessness
Criminal negligence · Ignorantia juris…
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Sexual offences · Pimping · Rape
Kidnapping · Manslaughter · Murder
Crimes against property
Criminal damage · Arson
Theft · Burglary · Deception
Crimes against justice
Obstruction of justice · Bribery
Perjury · Malfeasance in office
Inchoate offenses
Attempt
Conspiracy · Accessory
Criminal defenses
Automatism, Intoxication & Mistake
Insanity · Diminished responsibility
Duress · Necessity
Provocation · Self defence
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Contract law · Tort law · Property law
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Portals: Law · Criminal justice

The crime of obstruction of justice includes crimes committed by judges, prosecutors, attorneys general, and elected officials in general. It is misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance in the conduct of the office. Most commonly it is prosecuted as a crime for perjury by a non governmental official primarily because of prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutors and attorneys general however commit obstruction of justice when they fail to prosecute judges and other government officials for malfeasance misfeasance or nonfeasance in office.

Modern obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, refers to the crime of offering interference of any sort to the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other (usually government) officials. Often, no actual investigation or substantiated suspicion of a specific incident need exist to support a charge of obstruction of justice. Common law jurisdictions other than the United States tend to use the wider offense of Perverting the course of justice.

Generally, obstruction charges are laid when it is discovered that a person questioned in an investigation, who is not a suspect, has lied to the investigating officers. However, in most common law jurisdictions, the right to remain silent allows any person who is questioned by police merely to refuse to answer questions posed by an investigator without giving any reason for doing so. (In such a case, the investigators may subpoena the witness to give testimony under oath in court) It is not relevant if the person lied to protect a suspect (such as setting up a false alibi, even if the suspect is in fact innocent) or to hide from an investigation of their own activities (such as to hide their involvement in another crime). Obstruction charges can also be laid if a person alters or destroys physical evidence, even if they were under no compulsion at any time to produce such evidence.

In United States v. Binion, malingering or feigning illness during a competency evaluation was held to be obstruction of justice and led to an enhanced sentence.^[1]

Notable examples

Martha Stewart was convicted of obstruction of justice, as well as other charges, for falsifying her trading records after learning her friend Sam Waksal, the CEO of Imclone, the company whose stock she sold, was being investigated for insider trading. It appears that Ms. Stewart's own trading activities did not meet the strict definition of insider trading, and the falsification of documents was intended merely to create an explanation for what was a suspicious trade. However, her actions made it more difficult to prove that Waksal had also sold his stock in anticipation of negative news of the lack of FDA approval for Imclone's product.

Former Vice-Presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice for his role in the investigation of a leak to reporters that named a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame. His prison sentence was commuted by President George W. Bush in July of 2007, just before Libby was about to serve a two and a half year prison sentence.

President Richard Nixon was being investigated for obstruction of justice for his alleged role in the cover-up of the break-in at the Watergate hotel during his 1972 re-election campaign. Although it is widely believed that Nixon had no foreknowledge of his re-election committee's "dirty tricks" campaign against Democratic presidential candidates that led to the break-in, it appears he was aware of it after the fact and planned to pay money to keep the participants quiet.

An insider trader instructed his banker in the Cayman Islands to shred records of his suspicious trades when he learned he was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Unfortunately, this set up the banker for a charge of obstruction of justice, and the United States Department of Justice traded immunity for the obstruction charge in exchange for the banker's testimony about the trades he executed on behalf of the trader. Ironically, the banker could merely have refused to produce the trading records when asked, hiding behind the Cayman Islands' bank secrecy laws without being guilty of obstruction.^{[citation needed]}

Conrad Black was convicted of obstruction of justice in July, 2007 for removing 13 boxes containing financial records from his office in Toronto after it had been sealed by a court order, returning the boxes a few days later. Black claimed he had taken the boxes because they contained personal items.

Footnotes

^ Behavior of the Defendant in a Competency-to-Stand-Trial Evaluation Becomes an Issue in Sentencing. Journal of the American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved on 2007-10-10.

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Copyrights:

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Law Encyclopedia. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Obstruction of justice". Read more

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