Opinion ID: 1314537
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Sufficiency of the Evidence of Obstruction of Justice

Text: Spadoni claims that he is entitled to a judgment of acquittal on the charge of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1503 because there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that he knew his actions were likely to affect the grand jury proceedings. He bases this argument on United States v. Aguilar, 515 U.S. 593, 115 S.Ct. 2357, 132 L.Ed.2d 520 (1995), where the Supreme Court held that § 1503's intent element incorporates a requirement that the defendant have knowledge that his actions are likely to affect the judicial proceeding being obstructed. Id. at 599, 115 S.Ct. 2357. [14] The Court in Aguilar derived this requirement from several decisions limiting the facially broad language of the obstruction statute. Id. at 598-99, 115 S.Ct. 2357. The provision at issue is § 1503's omnibus clause, which follows several clauses criminalizing endeavors to injure, intimidate or influence grand or petit jurors or court officers. The omnibus clause contains a more general and open-ended prohibition, punishing anyone who 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 administration of justice. § 1503. Wary of the breadth of this language in a criminal prohibition, courts have limited its scope in several ways. In Pettibone v. United States, 148 U.S. 197, 13 S.Ct. 542, 37 L.Ed. 419 (1893), the Supreme Court imposed a requirement that a judicial proceeding actually exist, and that the defendant know or have notice of its existence. Id. at 206-07, 13 S.Ct. 542. The Court in Pettibone deemed it impossible to intend to obstruct a proceeding of which one was unaware or had no notice, and thus inferred the requirement of knowledge from the statute's corrupt intent element. Id. Additionally, several courts of appeals, apparently in order to confine § 1503's application to sufficiently harmful conduct, imposed a nexus requirement, under which the defendant's conduct must be such `that its natural and probable effect would be the interference with the due administration of justice.' United States v. Wood, 6 F.3d 692, 695 (10th Cir.1993) (quoting United States v. Thomas, 916 F.2d 647, 651 (11th Cir.1990)). Of course, the government was not required to prove that conduct with the natural and probable effect of obstructing justice actually succeeded in doing so in order to prove an endeavor to obstruct justice under § 1503. Wood, 6 F.3d at 695-96 & n. 4; Thomas, 916 F.2d at 651. In Aguilar, the Supreme Court adopted this nexus requirement with a slight modification. 515 U.S. at 600, 115 S.Ct. 2357. It applied Pettibone 's requirement of knowledge [15] not just to the existence of a proceeding, but to the likelihood that the defendant's actions would affect it, holding that as in Pettibone, if the defendant lacks knowledge that his actions are likely to affect the judicial proceeding, he lacks the requisite intent to obstruct. Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 599, 115 S.Ct. 2357. [16] The Court apparently used the word likely to stand in for the requirement that the action have the natural and probable effect of obstructing the judicial proceeding. See Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 613, 115 S.Ct. 2357 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (adopting this interpretation of the majority opinion). However, the facts of Aguilar appeared to complicate its holding that a defendant must have knowledge that his or her action is likely to affect the proceeding. The government presented evidence that Robert Aguilar made false statements to an FBI agent regarding an unauthorized disclosure of a wiretap, and that he did so while aware that a grand jury was investigating the same matter. Id. at 596-97, 115 S.Ct. 2357. The government's theory was that the defendant endeavored to obstruct the grand jury proceeding by lying to the agent with the intent that the agent communicate his false statements to the grand jury. Id. at 600-01, 115 S.Ct. 2357. The Supreme Court found the evidence insufficient to show that Aguilar knew that his false statement would be provided to the grand jury and thus reversed his § 1503 conviction. Id. at 601, 115 S.Ct. 2357. On its face, this statement seems in tension with the standard that the Court announced, which requires only that a defendant know that her actions would be likely to affect the proceeding, not that she know that her actions would have that effect. Later in the opinion, however, the Court indicated that the operative question was whether Aguilar knew that his false statement was likely to be provided to the grand jury, and that the Court's reference to whether Aguilar knew that his statement would be provided was an imprecise shorthand. The Court posited several situations where a defendant would violate § 1503 by knowing that his false statements were likely to be provided to the grand jury despite the fact that the statements were not actually provided to the grand jury, such as where a defendant lies to a subpoenaed witness who is ultimately not called to testify, or who testifies but does not transmit the defendant's version of the story. Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 602, 115 S.Ct. 2357. In indicating that a defendant could be culpable where false statements were not in fact provided to the grand jury, the Court made clear that the inquiry is whether the defendant knew his statements were likely to be presented to the grand jury, not whether he knew they would be presented. [17] Spadoni argues that his conduct was directly analogous to Aguilar's. Destroying a document does not in fact affect a grand jury proceeding if the grand jury never requests the document. While Spadoni deleted several documents from his company laptop, at no time did he delete a document for which there was an outstanding subpoena. Just as there was insufficient evidence to prove that Aguilar knew his false statements would later be communicated to the grand jury (or, as indicated above, were likely to be communicated to the grand jury), so, goes the argument, there is insufficient evidence to prove that Spadoni knew the documents he deleted would later be, or were likely later to be, requested by the grand jury. Spadoni's argument ignores a key difference between the issuance of a grand jury subpoena duces tecum seeking the production of documents and the questioning of a subject by an investigating agent. Grand jury subpoenas duces tecum are customarily employed to gather information and make it available to the investigative team of agents and prosecutors so that it can be digested and sifted for pertinent matter. Before the subpoenas are issued, the government often does not have at its disposal enough information to determine precisely what information will be relevant. Cf. United States v. R. Enters., Inc., 498 U.S. 292, 297, 111 S.Ct. 722, 112 L.Ed.2d 795 (1991) (`[T]he identity of the offender, and the precise nature of the offense, if there be one, normally are developed at the conclusion of the grand jury's labors, not at the beginning.' (quoting Blair v. United States, 250 U.S. 273, 282, 39 S.Ct. 468, 63 L.Ed. 979 (1919))). Indeed, [t]he function of the grand jury is to inquire into all information that might possibly bear on its investigation until it has identified an offense or has satisfied itself that none has occurred. As a necessary consequence of its investigatory function, the grand jury paints with a broad brush. Id. at 297, 111 S.Ct. 722 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, subpoenas duces tecum are often drawn broadly, sweeping up both documents that may prove decisive and documents that turn out not to be. This practice is designed to make it unlikely that a relevant document will escape the grand jury's notice, and it is generally effective. Destruction of a relevant document is therefore likely to impact the grand jury's deliberations. Cf. Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 601, 115 S.Ct. 2357 (delivery of false documents to the grand jury would be obstruction of justice). By contrast, an investigating agent collecting statements from witnesses (or even, as in Aguilar, from a suspect) does not always act as an arm of the grand jury, and what use will be made of false testimony given to an investigating agent who has not been subpoenaed or otherwise directed to appear before the grand jury is... speculative. Id. 515 U.S. at 600-01, 115 S.Ct. 2357. This context provides a crucial distinction between Aguilar's conduct and Spadoni's. The inference that Aguilar's statements to the agent would be presented to the grand jury was not strong. The statements were not obtained by grand jury subpoena, and statements made to investigating agents are not communicated to grand juries as a matter of course. By contrast, the inference that the grand jury would issue a subpoena for the Thiesfield and Stack contracts was quite strong, perhaps inescapable. The government produced evidence suggesting Spadoni's awareness of the comprehensive nature of the subpoenas duces tecum typically issued in federal grand jury investigations. The jury heard evidence that Triumph's attorneys anticipated further subpoenas, Trial Tr. vol. 5, 179-80; that Spadoni had received advice from a former prosecutor indicating that the grand jury would be likely to inspect the data contained on his laptop, id. at 180-81; that Spadoni stated his belief that federal investigations are very comprehensive and thorough, id. at 194; and that Spadoni asked Silvester to destroy copies of a different contract, id. at 191-93. The Stack and Thiesfield contracts were not peripheral documents; they were at the very core of the transaction the government was investigating. The jury could have concluded that Spadoni was aware that further subpoenas covering a broad range of documents would issue, and that he knew that it was likely that the Stack and Thiesfield contracts would be requested. Accordingly, Spadoni's conviction for obstruction of justice, based on his destruction of those documents in his computer files, was supported by sufficient evidence.