Obstruction of Justice

The linchpin of any obstruction case is the mens rea, or the mental state of the defendant. The statute requires that the individual acted corruptly. This is a high evidentiary bar. It means the prosecution must prove that the defendant acted with an improper purpose, specifically to thwart the administration of justice.

We argue that actions taken to protect privacy, assert constitutional rights or follow routine document retention policies do not constitute corrupt intent. If a business executive deletes emails as part of a scheduled auto-archive process, that is not obstruction. We meticulously reconstruct the timeline to show that the actions were routine and not motivated by a desire to conceal criminal activity from investigators.

Federal law requires a nexus, or a logical connection, between the obstructive act and an official proceeding. The defendant must have known, or should have reasonably foreseen, that a judicial or grand jury proceeding was pending or imminent. If an individual destroys documents before any investigation has begun and without knowledge that one is likely, there is no obstruction.

We challenge the government’s timeline. If we can demonstrate that our client had no knowledge of a federal inquiry at the time of the alleged act, the necessary link is broken. The Supreme Court has narrowed this scope, and we leverage those precedents to argue that a vague fear of future litigation is insufficient to trigger criminal liability.

While many obstruction charges relate to courtrooms, 18 U.S.C. § 1505 specifically covers obstruction of proceedings before departments and agencies of the United States. This includes investigations by the SEC, FBI, IRS or FDA. The threshold for what constitutes a proceeding in this context is often litigated.

Lying to an investigator during an informal interview can spiral into a § 1001 false statement charge, which is a cousin to obstruction. We advise clients that the cover-up is almost always easier to prove than the crime. Asserting the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent is a shield; lying or fabricating records is a sword that the government will turn against you.

Witness tampering is perhaps the most serious form of obstruction. This includes not only physical threats or bribery but also misleading conduct intended to influence testimony. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1512, it is a crime to persuade another person to withhold testimony, destroy evidence or evade legal process.

The line between refreshing a witness’s recollection and coaching them to lie is thin and dangerous. We frequently defend professionals who are accused of tampering simply for discussing a case with colleagues. We work to contextualize these conversations as innocent workplace dialogue rather than a conspiracy to subvert the truth.

Spoliation of evidence can lead to both civil sanctions and criminal charges. This involves altering, destroying or mutilating records, documents or other objects with the intent to impair their integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding. In the corporate world, this often triggers a battle over IT protocols.

The government may allege that wiping a laptop was a targeted destruction of evidence, while we argue it was standard device recycling. We employ digital forensic experts to recover data and prove that the deletion was not selective. If we can show that personal data was deleted while business records were preserved, it undermines the claim of criminal intent.

Federal law aggressively protects whistleblowers and informants. Retaliating against someone for providing information to law enforcement is a distinct federal crime. This includes physical harm but also extends to economic retaliation such as firing an employee or demoting them.

These charges often accompany substantive fraud charges. If an executive fires a whistleblower, prosecutors will add an obstruction count to the indictment. We defend these claims by documenting valid, non-retaliatory performance reasons for the employment decision, severing the link between the whistleblowing and the adverse action.

A subpoena duces tecum commands the production of documents. A common prosecutorial tactic is to issue a subpoena with broad categories, knowing the target might be tempted to withhold damaging documents that technically fall outside the scope. Or, the target might dump thousands of irrelevant documents to bury the smoking gun.

Both tactics can be framed as obstruction. We manage the subpoena response with absolute precision. We negotiate the scope with prosecutors to ensure clarity and then oversee the production process to ensure compliance is complete and defensible. A good faith effort to comply is a strong defense against allegations of willful concealment.

Investigators will often interview a subject before they have reviewed all the evidence, hoping the subject will lie about a detail the government already knows. This is the perjury trap. A simple lie about a meeting date or a phone call can become the basis for a felony charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1001.

This is why we enforce a strict policy: no client speaks to federal agents without counsel present. We prepare our clients to answer truthfully or to assert their rights. It is not a crime to refuse to answer, but it is a crime to answer falsely.

Modern obstruction cases are built on metadata. Prosecutors do not just look at the document; they look at when it was created, when it was modified and who accessed it. If a document was modified one day after a subpoena was received, that timestamp is prima facie evidence of obstruction.

We utilize our own forensic experts to analyze this metadata before the government does. We look for automated system updates or file corruption that might explain a modification date, providing an innocent technical explanation for what looks like tampering.

We frequently argue that the defendant lacked the requisite corrupt intent. This often involves the defense of mistake of fact or lack of knowledge. If a client destroyed documents because they genuinely believed the retention period had expired, there is no crime.

We present internal policy manuals, email reminders and testimony from compliance officers to corroborate that the destruction was part of a pre-existing, neutral policy. We must convince the jury that the defendant was acting out of administrative routine, not criminal malice.

For certain obstruction statutes, if there was no official proceeding pending at the time of the act, there can be no conviction. We aggressively investigate the timeline of the government’s investigation. If we can prove that the FBI did not open their file until weeks after the alleged shredding of documents, the charge under § 1503 may fail as a matter of law.

While § 1519 (the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-shredding provision) does not require a pending proceeding, it still requires an intent to impede a future investigation, which is harder to prove if the investigation was merely hypothetical.

If a client acted based on the specific advice of their attorney, this can negate the element of corrupt intent. If a lawyer advised a client that they were legally permitted to delete certain personal files from a work computer, the client’s reliance on that advice suggests they were trying to follow the law, not break it.

Asserting this defense is complex because it often requires waiving attorney-client privilege, but in the right case, it is a complete shield against liability. We carefully weigh the risks of exposing privileged communications against the benefit of establishing good faith.

Under the United States Sentencing Guidelines, obstruction of justice carries a high base offense level. Furthermore, if the obstruction involved the threat of physical injury or substantial interference with the administration of justice, the sentence increases.

In cases where the underlying offense was a serious felony like drug trafficking or fraud, the obstruction sentence is often pegged to the severity of that underlying crime. This means you can be sentenced as if you committed the fraud, even if you were only convicted of the cover-up. We fight for downward departures, arguing that the conduct was an aberrant lapse in judgment rather than a calculated criminal scheme.

For attorneys, accountants, doctors and corporate officers, an obstruction conviction is a career-ender. It is a crime of moral turpitude that leads to automatic disbarment or revocation of professional licenses. It creates a permanent bar to holding positions of public trust.

We understand that for many clients, the collateral damage to their career is as terrifying as the prison time. Our goal is to avoid the conviction entirely to preserve the professional livelihood that took decades to build.

Obstruction charges are often the glue that holds a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) indictment together. Prosecutors use acts of obstruction to prove a pattern of racketeering activity.

This exposes the defendant to twenty-year sentences and massive asset forfeiture. By defeating the obstruction count, we can often destabilize the entire RICO case, removing the predicate acts necessary to sustain the racketeering charge.