Source: https://www.federalcriminalappealsblog.com/a-speakeasy-robbery-leads-to-an-important-witness-tampering-opinion/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 12:38:19+00:00

Document:
Glorious Shaver, Andrew White, and Jermel Lewis knew of a speakeasy in North Philadelphia.
A woman named Jeanette Ketchmore would buy bottles of booze and sell drinks from then for four or five dollars in her home. Some of those bottles of booze crossed state lines before making it to Ms. Ketchmore’s house.
She was not licensed by the state or local government to provide these drinks.
Messrs. Shaver, White, and Lewis were not content to drink at Ms. Ketchmore’s home. Instead, they decided to rob it at 5:30 in the morning on November 8, 2005.
They were caught and prosecuted in state court. After a year in state court, the federal government decided to prosecute – to protect the interests of those bottles of alcohol that crossed state lines.
The three men were indicted in federal court in Philadelphia for Hobbs Act Robbery.
They were convicted, and, in United States v. Shavers, the Third Circuit affirmed their Hobbs Act robbery convictions (if you’re interested in the commerce clause and the Hobbs Act, there is a lengthy discussion that may be interesting. Though, SPOILER ALERT, the defendants lose).
But that’s not all – there were also witness-tampering charges against Messrs. Shaver and White that resulted in an interesting and important opinion from the Third Circuit.
Messrs. Shaver and White made a number of calls from a jail while they had been charged in state court trying to encourage witnesses to the speakeasy robbery to have a different memory.
(1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding . . .
The trouble is, official proceeding is later defined by section 1515(a)(1)(A) as a federal proceeding.
Does a state court proceeding count as an official proceeding for the purposes of the witness tampering statute?
In Arthur Anderson LLP v. United States, the United States Supreme Court reviewed convictions under § 1512(b)(2)(A) and (B). 544 U.S. 696, 698 (2005). The Court held that to satisfy the “official proceeding” requirement under those subsections, the Government must show a “nexus” between the defendant’s conduct and a particular proceeding. Id. at 707- 08. To meet that nexus requirement, the Government must prove that the defendant “ha[d] in contemplation [a] particular official proceeding” when he or she attempted to interfere with evidence or a witness. Id. at 708. The proceeding need not have been pending or about to be instituted, but it must have been foreseeable. Id. at 707-08.
The government argued that the Supreme Court sotto vocce narrowed Arthur Anderson in Fowler v. United States. There, a bank robber shot a police officer after a bank robbery.
Mr. Fowler was charged under section 1512(a)(1)(C), which applies to people who kill someone – or try to – to avoid prosecution.
The Supreme Court held that for a prosecution under 1512(a)(1)(C) the government only had to show a reasonable likelihood that the person killed would have communicated with law enforcement that could have made it to federal law enforcement.
This is, of course, a different standard than the defendant-specific foreseeability requirement in Arthur Anderson.
Yet, the Supreme Court in Fowler never cites Arthur Anderson.
In light of that silence in Fowler, and the different ends of a prosecution under 1512(a) and one under 1512(b) – namely that the first involves someone dying and not the second – the Third Circuit held that Arthur Anderson and Fowler are simply different doctrinal boxes.
This . . . leads us to the logical conclusion that there are at least two lines of jurisprudence developing separately under the VWPA: one for the investigation-related provisions, such as § 1512(b)(3) and (a)(1)(C), and one for the “official proceeding” provisions, such as § 1512(b)(1) and (b)(2). See Ronda, 455 F.3d at 1288 (observing that the link to a federal proceeding in the investigation-related provisions is less stringent than the “official proceeding” requirement in § 1512(b)(1) and (2)). Hence, we hold that a successful prosecution under § 1512(b)(1) requires proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant contemplated a particular, foreseeable proceeding, and that the contemplated proceeding constituted an “official proceeding,” as defined by § 1515(a)(1)(A).
Messrs. Shavers and White were charged under § 1512(b)(1) – which requires proof of a particular foreseeable federal proceeding. Because their efforts to tamper with witnesses were efforts to tamper with a state court proceeding, the Third Circuit concluded that the conviction for trying to tamper with the federal case must fail.
It is clear from the transcript of the telephone calls that Shavers’s and White’s efforts were directed at preventing potential witnesses of the speakeasy robbery from testifying at their upcoming hearing in Pennsylvania state court. There is no evidence that they contemplated any other proceeding.
The convictions for witness tampering were vacated.
Tagged: "THIRD CIRCUIT" and "Witness Tampering"

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