Opinion ID: 151938
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: The District Court Properly Imposed Obstruction-of-Justice Enhancements to Gonzalez's Sentence

Text: The district court imposed the obstruction-of-justice enhancement, U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1, when calculating Gonzalez's guidelines sentence. The court cited fourteen separate examples of perjury by Gonzalez, which he does not contest on appeal, and, further, an instance in which Gonzalez personally instructed the jury that Jury nullification is your right, which he does contest. The district court found that these incidents, individually and cumulatively, merited imposing the enhancement. Gonzalez's argument about his jury nullification statements is beside the point. Cf. United States v. Manning, 79 F.3d 212, 219 (1st Cir.1996). The perjury findings were independently sufficient to justify the enhancement. See, e.g., United States v. Shinderman, 515 F.3d 5, 19-20 (1st Cir. 2008); United States v. Meada, 408 F.3d 14, 24-25 (1st Cir.2005).