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Corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding is a felony under U.S. federal law. It was enacted as part of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 in reaction to the Enron scandal, and closed a legal loophole on who could be charged with evidence tampering by defining the new crime very broadly.
The justices ruled 6-3 to throw out a lower court's decision that had allowed a charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding - congressional certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 ...
The law in question criminalizes efforts to obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding. Conviction can result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Conviction can result in a prison ...
In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that an “obstruction of an official proceeding” charge brought against Joseph Fischer, a former police officer and rioter, was too broadly used and the ...
In April 2023, the D.C. Circuit reversed Nichols in a 2–1 ruling, finding that Sarbanes-Oxley was broad enough to cover the conduct of Fischer and the other two defendants. It held that the statute covered "all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding", other than actions already covered by the evidence-tampering provision. [6]
Obstruction of justice is an umbrella term covering a variety of specific crimes. [1] Black's Law Dictionary defines it as any "interference with the orderly administration of law and justice". [2] Obstruction has been categorized by various sources as a process crime, [3] a public-order crime, [4] [5] or a white-collar crime. [6]
According to Justice Department statistics, there were roughly 259 defendants facing the obstruction charge – a federal statute that makes it a crime to obstruct an official proceeding – when ...
The court’s 6-3 ruling in June requires prosecutors to show that defendants charged with obstructing an official proceeding – the congressional certification of the election – "impaired the ...