Opinion ID: 675260
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: issues

Text: 13 The primary issue on appeal, and sole issue meriting discussion, concerns the propriety of the district court's adjustment of the offense level under count one for obstruction of justice. 10 Bagwell argues that at the time of the offense, he was acting as a government informant against others who were planting marijuana on Forest Service property. Because his removal of the plants obstructed the investigation of the conspiracy to grow marijuana, rather than the investigation of his own wrongdoing, he argues that U.S.S.G. Sec. 3C1.1 was improperly applied to enhance his sentence for the drug offense charged in count one. He further argues that even if the obstruction of justice enhancement properly applies to the investigation of an offense other than the offense of conviction, the government failed to show that the other investigation--the Smith/Pardue conspiracy--was actually obstructed. 14 The government principally contends that the investigation Bagwell obstructed was the growing of marijuana on national forest land, a continuing process that included Bagwell's offense of removing some of the marijuana plants for his own illicit purposes. The government also claims that the obstruction of justice need not have been successful for the enhancement to apply. Significantly, at oral argument before this court, the government conceded that the district court erred if it found that Bagwell's obstruction of justice related to the prosecution of others, and not to his own case.