CRS Report for Congress. Obstruction of Justice: An Abridged Overview of Related Federal Criminal Laws

摘要

Obstruction of justice is the frustration of governmental purposes by violence, corruption, destruction of evidence, or deceit. It is a federal crime. In fact, it is several crimes. Obstruction prosecutions regularly involve charges under several statutory provisions. Federal obstruction of justice laws are legion; too many for even passing reference to all of them in a single report. The general obstruction of justice provisions are six: 18 U.S.C. 1512 (tampering with federal witnesses), 1513 (retaliating against federal witnesses), 1503 (obstruction of pending federal court proceedings), 1505 (obstruction of pending Congressional or federal administrative proceedings), 371 (conspiracy), and contempt. In addition to these, there are a host of other statutes that penalize obstruction by violence, corruption, destruction of evidence, or deceit. This is an abridged version of CRS Report RL34303, Obstruction of Justice: An Overview of Some of the Federal Laws that Prohibit Interference with Judicial, Executive or Legislative Activities, without the footnotes, quotations, or citations to authority found in the longer report.