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Tag Archive for: justice

Police Procedure

Obstruction Of Justice: No, No, No, Don’t Tell Me No Lies

obstruction of justice

Obstruction of Justice (aka perverting the course of justice) is a broad term that simply boils down to charging an individual for knowingly lying to law enforcement in order to change to course/outcome of a case, or lying to protect another person. The charge may also be brought against the person who destroys, hides, or alters evidence.

Penalties for obstruction of justice vary from state to state, and the federal government. For example, in Virginia, Obstruction of Justice is a class 1 misdemeanor that carries a penalty of up to one year in jail.

Misdemeanor Classes in Virginia

§ 18.2-11. Punishment for conviction of a misdemeanor.

The authorized punishments for conviction of a misdemeanor are:

(a) For Class 1 misdemeanors, confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.

(b) For Class 2 misdemeanors, confinement in jail for not more than six months and a fine of not more than $1,000, either or both.

(c) For Class 3 misdemeanors, a fine of not more than $500.

(d) For Class 4 misdemeanors, a fine of not more than $250.

The federal government sees the crime of obstruction in a different light. In their eyes, obstruction is a felony that carries a stiff penalty. For example, in 2010, a Georgia deputy sheriff, Mitnee Jones, was convicted of Obstruction for lying to the FBI and providing false statements as part of an investigation into the death of a Fulton County jail inmate.

The jury convicted Jones of filing a false incident report with the intent to hinder the federal investigation, making a false material statement about the incident to a Special Agent of the FBI, and obstruction of justice by making false statements to a federal grand jury investigating the death of the inmate.

Jones faced a maximum prison sentence of 20 years for filing the false incident report with the intent to hinder the federal investigation; five years for making a false material statement about the incident to the FBI, and 10 years for obstruction of justice by making false statements to a federal grand jury. However, at sentencing, Jones received a much lighter sentence of one year and three months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. She was also ordered to perform 120 hours of community service.

Not all obstruction of justice cases are simple, with paper trails to follow. Remember Martha Stewart? The government’s criminal case against Stewart was based solely on the fact that she made false and misleading statements to the SEC, and those accusations led to Stewart’s conviction for obstruction of justice, and the charge of lying to federal investigators.

By the way, the feds love to add obstruction charges to their cases (every suspect lies to the police at some point, right?).

federal bureau investigation

They do so because the threat of the additional 5-year sentence for obstruction is a great bargaining tool when offering a plea deal (We’ll drop the obstruction charge if you plead guilty to possession of the cocaine).

Here’s the obstruction section from the Code of Virginia:

Obstruction of Justice – Code of Virginia

§ 18.2-460. Obstructing justice; penalty.

A. If any person without just cause knowingly obstructs a judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, any law-enforcement officer, or animal control officer employed pursuant to § 3.2-6555 in the performance of his duties as such or fails or refuses without just cause to cease such obstruction when requested to do so by such judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, law-enforcement officer, or animal control officer employed pursuant to § 3.2-6555, he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

B. Except as provided in subsection C, any person who, by threats or force, knowingly attempts to intimidate or impede a judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, any law-enforcement officer, or an animal control officer employed pursuant to § 3.2-6555 lawfully engaged in his duties as such, or to obstruct or impede the administration of justice in any court, is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

C. If any person by threats of bodily harm or force knowingly attempts to intimidate or impede a judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, any law-enforcement officer, lawfully engaged in the discharge of his duty, or to obstruct or impede the administration of justice in any court relating to a violation of or conspiracy to violate § 18.2-248 or subdivision (a) (3), (b) or (c) of § 18.2-248.1, or § 18.2-46.2 or § 18.2-46.3, or relating to the violation of or conspiracy to violate any violent felony offense listed in subsection C of § 17.1-805, he shall be guilty of a Class 5 felony.

D. Any person who knowingly and willfully makes any materially false statement or representation to a law-enforcement officer or an animal control officer employed pursuant to § 3.2-6555 who is in the course of conducting an investigation of a crime by another is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

* Not everyone who lies to local and state police is charged with obstruction. If so, nearly every person who’s been questioned by officers would be in jail, because, based on my experiences, approximately 9 out of 10 suspects lie when they’re in the “hot seat.”

When it comes to charging someone with obstruction, well, you’ve got to carefully pick your battles, and then fight them wisely.


“Don’t Tell Me No Lies” ~ The Golliwogs

May 23, 2020/by Lee Lofland
https://leelofland.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/obstruction-of-justice.jpg 600 800 Lee Lofland https://leelofland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/the-graveyard-shift-1.png Lee Lofland2020-05-23 09:32:032020-05-23 11:54:21Obstruction Of Justice: No, No, No, Don’t Tell Me No Lies
Police Procedure

We Want Justice! … Until We Don’t

We Demand Justice!

That’s the cry we hear the moment a police officer is involved in a shooting. And, the calls for justice are, well, just. Police officers are not above the law and must be held accountable for their actions just like anyone else.

So first we hear, “He/she (the officer) murdered that man!”

Next … “Lock him/her up!”

Those sentiments are sometimes understandable, especially when coming from those who’re close to the person who died. But they’re also the boilerplate words of the people who hate cops and everything they do, including existing on this planet. And they’re often the words of the misinformed or uninformed. And, unfortunately, they also follow an unjustified shooting, which, thankfully, is rare.

These calls for “justice” often come far too soon, because at that point, immediately following the incident, no one other than the officer who fired the final round has any idea at all as to what took place from his/her point of view. No one else saw and experienced what they did. No one.

So what are the rules governing a police officer’s use of deadly force? Where did the rules originate? Were they drafted by a group of trigger-happy cops? Well, it may surprise some of you to know that the law pertaining to the use of force was set in stone by the Supreme Court, and it is the rule of law that must be adhered to by ALL police officers, as well as the judges and juries who must hear and decide the cases resulting from the use of deadly force.

Here’s The Court’s ruling:

“The “reasonableness” of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.” [Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989)]

Basically, The Court said that as a result of the split-second life or death decisions officers are forced to make, we may not use “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” to judge them.

I seen it on the Facebook

Back to the public’s very loud cries for justice.

So they get what they want. A prosecutor decides probable cause exists to charge a police officer who was involved in a deadly force incident where the subject was killed. The officer is arrested and jailed.

This is what the public wanted—an arrest. And what follows an arrest? A trial. But the people who begin their protesting 1.5 seconds following a police-involved shooting seem to want to skip the trial portion of the process and immediately hop on over to a public tortuous death-by-fire-ant and piranha consumption.

But that’s not how the legal system in this country works. We take our problems to court where a judge or jury of our peers decides the case, not sign- and rock-carrying mobs who burn and loot stores, the very dangerous out-of-control adult equivalent of a child’s temper-tantrum.

A jury trial …

In the most recent case where Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez, a Mexican-American, shot and killed Philando Castile during a traffic stop, a total of 12 jurors and as many as 6 alternates were chosen from a pool of 50 people to hear his case. He was charged with one count of second-degree manslaughter and two counts of felony dangerous discharge of a firearm.

By the way, in Minnesota, jurors are selected at random by computer from a list of people with drivers licenses, state IDs, and those who have registered to vote. I’ll say this again, the jurors (seven men, five women—ten white, two African American) were chosen randomly, by computer.

Judge William Leary, the judge in the Yanez trial, explained in his instructions to jurors, that the defendant should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, adding, “This presumption remains with the defendant unless and until the defendant has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Keep in mind, the defendant does not have to prove his or her innocence.

The Yanez trial ended with the jury deliberating for 27 hours. They poured over the trial evidence and statements and testimonies. And, at first they could not come to a unanimous decision, which is required by Minnesota law. Ten jurors voted guilty while two held out. The two who weren’t convinced of guilt were not people of color, so the indecision did not fall on racial issues.

In the end, though, all twelve jurors agreed and Jeronimo Yanez was a free man, cleared of all charges. One of the Yanez jurors, Dennis Ploussard, said the prosecution simply did not prove their case. “It was very hard to come to the conclusion we did. Very hard. We dissected the law yesterday for most of the day, where we could put it in layman’s terms where we could understand it. Because the way the law is written by lawyers, you really have to sit down and dissect it and figure out what it really means, and we did that and the law was in favor of Yanez.”

He also went a bit further, saying this about the public’s negative reaction to the verdict. “Well they didn’t see all the evidence we did. And they didn’t read what the law actually, really interprets the situation of manslaughter in the second degree.”

Then, the verdict was announced and the streets filled with protestors who didn’t get the results they wanted. Again, these protestors were people who didn’t see all the evidence seen by the jurors, and they didn’t read what the law actually states with regard to the case in question. Instead of taking the time to learn and read and react to facts, they went with emotion and headed for the streets.

We have a legal system in place. It involves courts and attorneys and judges and juries.

When someone is charged with a crime the courts decides their fate. Juries are made up of us, citizens of our communities. They’re you, me, and our friends and neighbors. People we like and some we don’t. They selected randomly. No one knows who’ll be chosen to serve. It’s as fair as it gets with what we have to work with … humans. And this is all supposed to play out in a formal courtroom setting, not in the streets tossing bricks at store windows. Trials are where juries hear the evidence and they then make their decisions based on the law and common sense.

Ah, common sense. It used to exist on this planet. It had a place here. It really did. Still does, actually. I wish it would return from wherever it’s hiding, because we need a double helping of it right now.

*By the way, the police have no say-so in courtroom verdicts. This is totally the responsibility of judges and juries. They alone alone make those decisions. Again, police officers have absolutely nothing to do with the decisions made by juries and/or judges.


The Yanez jurors:

They started with 50 randomly-selected people. Attorneys for both sides had the opportunity to speak with each person and either reject or accept them as jurors. In the end, 12 were chosen. They were:

Juror 1: Young black male—works as a shift manager at Wendy’s and personal care attendant for his mom. Never had a run-in with police and believes the rich could get off in the legal system because they could hire better attorneys.

Juror 2: An older white female who manages a gas station that has a contract with police. She said she had never heard of the Castile case.

Juror 3: Middle-aged white male whose wife works for the St. Paul School District, the same place Castile worked — but she did not know him. He lives very close to the location of the shooting.

Juror 4: A middle-aged white male who said he had very little knowledge of the case.

Juror 5: A middle-aged white female who works at an assisted-living center and is active in church volunteer work.

Juror 6: A white male wellness coach was the jury foreperson. He believes too many “victimless” crimes are prosecuted.

Juror 7: A white female who works as a nurse at the same hospital as Yanez’s wife, but said she does not know her. She said she was “dissatisfied” with how police responded to a call in 1996.

Juror 8: An 18-year-old Ethiopian-American female who immigrated to America when she was 10.

Juror 9: A middle-aged computer support worker. She believes in the right to own a firearm but said, “I’m trying to stay away from them right now.”

Juror 10: A middle-aged retired white male. He owns a handgun and hunts.

Juror 11: A middle-aged white male who owns several shotguns and long rifles to hunt pheasants.

Juror 12: A middle-aged white male who believes minor criminal offenses snowball and trap people in the justice system. “It seems like it’s rigged against you,” he said.


*One thing to remember, department use of force policies can vary from one department to another. However, agencies can only make their rules tougher than the laws allow, not more relaxed.

June 17, 2017/by Lee Lofland
https://leelofland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Screen-Shot-2017-06-17-at-12.10.25-PM-copy.jpg 312 822 Lee Lofland https://leelofland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/the-graveyard-shift-1.png Lee Lofland2017-06-17 12:52:132017-06-17 13:07:28We Want Justice! … Until We Don’t
Police Procedure

Obstructing Justice

Obstruction of justice is a sort of loose term of varied meanings. It’s a phrase that’s sometimes used incorrectly, and sometimes as a threat.

“You don’t tell us what we want to know we’re going to charge your 109-year-old grandma with obstructing. That’s right, she’ll go to prison for 10 years! Do you want that on your conscious?” said the mean and mostly nasty federal agent.

So what is obstruction of justice? Does it mean to physically stop an officer from carrying out a specific duty? How about words? Could a string of them, when spoken, bring about a charge of obstruction? What about lying to the police? After all, aren’t all spoken words, even lies, protected by the First Amendment?

Let’s first address the definition of Obstruction of Justice per Black’s Law Dictionary, a reference book you’ll find in nearly every law office in the country, as well as in the offices of many police detectives.

From Black’s Law Dictionary:

What is OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE?

The noncompliance with the legal system by interfering with (1) the law administration or procedures, (2) not fully disclosing information or falsifying statements, and (3) inflicting damage on an officer, juror or witness.So there it is in black and white. Any or all of the above could land someone in deep trouble, and maybe even behind bars, for a long time.Breaking the law down even further, specifically to a single state, the Commonwealth of Virginia, it looks like this:

§ 18.2-460. Obstructing justice; resisting arrest; penalty.

A. If any person without just cause knowingly obstructs a judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, any law-enforcement officer, or animal control officer employed pursuant to § 3.2-6555 in the performance of his duties as such or fails or refuses without just cause to cease such obstruction when requested to do so by such judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, law-enforcement officer, or animal control officer employed pursuant to § 3.2-6555, he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.B. Except as provided in subsection C, any person who, by threats or force, knowingly attempts to intimidate or impede a judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, any law-enforcement officer, or an animal control officer employed pursuant to § 3.2-6555 lawfully engaged in his duties as such, or to obstruct or impede the administration of justice in any court, is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.C. If any person by threats of bodily harm or force knowingly attempts to intimidate or impede a judge, magistrate, justice, juror, attorney for the Commonwealth, witness, any law-enforcement officer, lawfully engaged in the discharge of his duty, or to obstruct or impede the administration of justice in any court relating to a violation of or conspiracy to violate § 18.2-248 or subdivision (a) (3), (b) or (c) of § 18.2-248.1, or § 18.2-46.2 or § 18.2-46.3, or relating to the violation of or conspiracy to violate any violent felony offense listed in subsection C of § 17.1-805, he shall be guilty of a Class 5 felony.

D. Any person who knowingly and willfully makes any materially false statement or representation to a law-enforcement officer or an animal control officer employed pursuant to § 3.2-6555 who is in the course of conducting an investigation of a crime by another is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

 Federal Law – Obstruction

As you could imagine, federal laws regarding obstruction, or any other offense, is detailed and detailed and detailed almost beyond comprehension. So, here’s the tidbit most relevant to this article, and it goes like this …

“Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress—

Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.”

So make of it what you wish. But whatever you do, please save political comments for your own pages. Please, not even a whimper or hint. I’m just a messenger of fact.

Now, back to Spud from the top photo. Apparently, he lied and told Officer P. Tater that he hadn’t seen anything (we assume the officer was referring to a crime or something related to criminal activity).

Based upon what you’ve read above, if he was lying to the officer, who was conducting an official investigation, could Spud be charged with obstruction? If so, why? If no, why not?

 

 

May 19, 2017/by Lee Lofland
https://leelofland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Spud-copy.jpg 600 800 Lee Lofland https://leelofland.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/the-graveyard-shift-1.png Lee Lofland2017-05-19 07:40:072017-05-19 07:40:07Obstructing Justice

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