Court Opinion

ID: 9486194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:40:53.984689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:34.798018
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur fully in the majority’s disposition of appellant’s sufficiency of the evidence and severance claims. I must dissent, however, from its holding that venue can constitutionally lie in the Eastern District of Virginia. In my view, Article III and the Sixth Amendment mandate that appellant be tried in the District of Columbia. Accordingly, I would vacate appellant’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1513 and remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss the indictment.
I.
Article III requires that “the Trial of all Crimes ... shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed.” U.S. Const, art. Ill, § 2, cl. 3 (emphasis added). Reinforcing this command, the Sixth Amendment directs that, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been commit-ted_” U.S. Const, amend. VI (emphasis added).
Cofield was convicted of, inter alia, retaliating against a witness in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1513(a)(1).1 The conduct for which he was convicted consisted of striking Sheila Wormley — who had been a witness in a then-completed judicial proceeding — knocking her to the ground and dragging her against a tree, all of which occurred in front of a thrift store in the District of Columbia. Thus, in the words of section 1513, exclusively within the geographical boundaries of the District of Columbia, Cofield “engage[d] in conduct” that “cause[d] bodily injury” with the “intent to retaliate against” a witness for attendance “at an official proceeding.... ” As the majority itself concedes, Cofield undertook no conduct and committed no act, nor any “portion of the offense, in the Eastern District of Virginia. Under these circumstances, the plain language of both Article III and the Sixth Amendment dictates that constitutional venue lies only in the District of Columbia.
Notwithstanding that Cofield concededly committed his crime in the District of Columbia, the majority holds that venue lies also in the Eastern District of Virginia. The majority reaches this conclusion by reasoning that the overall purpose of section 1513 is the same as that underlying contempt of court statutes — to protect the integrity of the judicial system — and therefore that section 1513 venue should lie in the Eastern District of Virginia, where it would lie had Cofield been convicted of contempt. This “dual approach” for determining venue, ante at 416, under which a court must inquire not merely as to where the crime was committed but also as to the general purposes prompting the statutory proscription, is required, the majority believes, by the “overriding principle” of United States v. Anderson, 328 U.S. 699, 703, *42166 S.Ct. 1213, 1216, 90 L.Ed. 1529 (1946). Ante at 417.
II.
A.
The majority’s error, I believe, is its misreading of the Supreme Court’s directive in Anderson to consider the “nature of the crime” in conducting the Sixth Amendment venue analysis. The majority reads this directive as requiring that effect be given to Congress’ overall purpose in enacting a criminal provision even where, as here, Congress did not criminalize the particular conduct that its asserted purposes suggest might have been criminalized. Proceeding on this misreading, which was urged upon it by the government, the majority effectively reads into section 1613 the element of an effect on the administration of justice even though Congress did not in that section criminalize the affecting of the administration of justice. Unlike sections 1503 and 1512(c), for example,2 section 1513 criminalizes conduct entirely without regard to its effect on either particular proceedings or the administration of justice as a whole. Compare United States v. Cores, 356 U.S. 405, 409, 78 S.Ct. 875, 878, 2 L.Ed.2d 873 (1958) (“remaining at the instant of expiration” satisfies but does not exhaust the definition of the crime). In other words, the “nature of the [section 1513] crime” is such that it is committed irrespective of any effect it might have had on the judicial process. Because the crime does not necessitate (even if it assumes) an effect on a judicial proceeding or the justice system, the fact that commission of its constituent acts might have affected the judicial process in another jurisdiction cannot support venue in that jurisdiction.3
The majority’s misunderstanding of the phrase “nature of the crime” is understandable. The Supreme Court has never defined the phrase or actually applied it in the Sixth Amendment context in a way that provides any insight into its meaning. And the phrase is inherently ambiguous in the context of the Sixth Amendment venue analysis.4 I believe, *422however, the Court intended by this phrase nothing more (or less) than an exhaustive inquiry into the precise conduct that Congress proscribed in the particular statute. This inquiry may legitimately include consideration of congressional purpose, but I do not believe, as does the majority, that venue can be predicated upon even undisputed purposes of the statute that were not actually given effect in the statutory text.
Construing the phrase as concerned exclusively with the conduct proscribed by the particular criminal statute, as I would, is more faithful both to the logic of the analysis suggested by the Sixth Amendment itself and to the Court’s limited precedent on this question. The sole question in Sixth Amendment venue analysis is the geographic location of the crime; the Constitution requires trial in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. See, e.g., Anderson, 328 U.S. at 704-05, 66 S.Ct. at 1216-17 (“The constitutional specification is geographic; and the geography prescribed is the district or districts within which the offense is committed.”) (footnote omitted); United States v. Cores, 356 U.S. at 407, 78 S.Ct. at 877, 2 L.Ed.2d 873 (1958) (“The Constitution makes it clear that determination of proper venue in a criminal case requires determination of where the crime was committed.”) (footnote omitted). To determine the geographic location of the crime in turn requires first, that the conduct or acts constituting the crime be identified and, second, that the location of the commission of those acts be ascertained. Because the standard adopted by the Court presumably parallels the simple logic of the Amendment, the most reasonable inference is that when it instructed that venue be based upon “the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it,” Anderson, 328 U.S. at 703, 66 S.Ct. at 1216, the Court intended by the phrase “nature of the crime” the conduct — the act or acts — constituting the offense.
Consistent with this logical inference, the Court without exception has invoked the phrase in its Sixth Amendment venue cases exclusively as a shorthand reference for an inquiry into the specific conduct or acts statutorily proscribed.5 It first used the phrase in the constitutional venue context in United States v. Anderson, where it decided the proper venue for a prosecution for refusing to submit to induction into the Armed Forces in violation of Section 11 of the Selective Training and Service Act. 328 U.S. at 703, 66 S.Ct. at 1216. After reciting the “nature of the crime and location of the acts constituting it” standard, id., it proceeded to examine the acts constituting the crime and the geographical location of their commission. As the Court concluded, “[Anderson’s] refusal [to submit for induction] was his crime. It took place at Fort Lewis. The District Court [in Fort Lewis] accordingly had jurisdiction.” Id. at 706, 66 S.Ct. at 1217.
In Travis v. United States, 364 U.S. 631, 635-37, 81 S.Ct. at 361-62 (1961), the Court addressed the question of venue for prosecution of the crime of filing a false statement with the National Labor Relations Board. Again acknowledging the need to examine the nature of the crime in order to determine where the crime was committed, the Court proceeded to examine exclusively the acts *423proscribed by section 9(h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended. Closely scrutinizing “the words of the Act” and its “statutory design,” 364 U.S. at 635-36, 81 S.Ct. at 361-62, the Court concluded that “the explicit provision” of section 9(h) penalizes “only the single act of having a false statement at a specified place,” rather than the act of filing the statement. Id. at 637, 81 S.Ct. at 362. Because that “specified place” was the District of Columbia, where the false statement was actually placed on file, the Court held that the prosecution could only be brought there, and not in the district where the statement was executed and mailed. Id.
In its only other case employing the nature of the crime analysis, United States v. Cores, supra, the Court considered whether an alien’s act of “willfully remain[ing] in the United States in excess of the number of days allowed,” in violation of § 252(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 66 Stat. 221, 8 U.S.C. § 1282(c), was a continuing crime that could be prosecuted wherever the accused was found. 356 U.S. 405, 78 S.Ct. 875. After stating the need to consider the nature of the crime to determine where it was committed, the Court reasoned that u[t]he conduct proscribed is the affirmative act of willfully remaining” and that “the crucial word ‘remains’ permits no connotation other than continuing presence.” 356 U.S. at 408, 78 S.Ct. at 878 (emphasis added). Therefore, it concluded, the offense occurs wherever the accused continually remains. Id. at 409, 78 S.Ct. at 878.
Far from an invitation to give effect to a statute’s general purpose, the “overriding principle” to be gleaned from these cases is that the nature of the crime inquiry is intended to be an exacting inquiry into the specific conduct constituting the offense, largely if not exclusively defined by the particular verbs written in a statute. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Court intended to confer through the phrase “nature of the crime” carte blanche on the courts to effectuate general congressional purpose distinct from the specific congressional intent evidenced in the statutory text.6
The Courts of Appeals have almost uniformly understood the phrase as only requiring inquiry into the specific conduct proscribed by the statute, as evidenced by the verbs that Congress employed. See, e.g., United States v. Barsanti, 943 F.2d 428, 434 (4th Cir.1991), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1474, 117 L.Ed.2d 618 (1992); United States v. Blecker, 657 F.2d 629, 632 (4th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1150, 102 S.Ct. 1016, 71 L.Ed.2d 304 (1982); United States v. Brakke, 934 F.2d 174, 176-77 (8th Cir.1991); United States v. Ryan, 894 F.2d 355, 360 (10th Cir.1990); United States v. Griffin, 814 F.2d 806, 810 (1st Cir.1987); United States v. Chestnut, 533 F.2d 40, 46-48 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 829, 97 S.Ct. 88, 50 L.Ed.2d 93 (1976); but see United States v. Billups, 692 F.2d 320, 332 (4th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 820, 104 S.Ct. 84, 78 L.Ed.2d 93 (1983) (verb test not exclusive method); United States v. Reed, 773 F.2d 477, 481 (2d Cir.1985) (“substantial contacts” test). Indeed, this circuit so understood the phrase in United States v. Kibler, 667 F.2d 452, 454 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 961, 102 S.Ct. 2037, 72 L.Ed.2d 485 (1982) (following reasoning of United States v. Tedesco, 635 F.2d 902, 905 (1st Cir.1980), cert. denied, 452 U.S. 962, 101 S.Ct. 3112, 69 L.Ed.2d 974 (1981), as to proper venue under section 1503).7
*424B.
The majority relies upon our decision in Kibler and the First Circuit’s decision in Tedesco to support both its initial venture into statutory purpose and its specific (and critical) conclusion, based upon its assumption as to the purpose of section 1513, that the section is essentially a “contempt of court” statute. Ante at 416, 419. Neither case, however, can be read to support either the majority’s unfettered approach to venue analysis or an analogy of section 1513 offenses to traditional contempt of court offenses. In Kibler, our holding turned on our interpretation of the statute’s written text, not its purpose. In fact, we expressly held that “analysis of the verbs defining the offense” establishes the situs of the crime as the district of the proceeding sought to be obstructed. 667 F.2d at 454. We did reference portions of the statute’s legislative history. But we did so only to reinforce our interpretation of the statutory text. Id. at 454-55 (citing legislative history analysis from Tedesco, 635 F.2d at 905-06). The First Circuit recounted the legislative history of section 1503 in Tedesco, as the majority notes. Similarly, however, it did so not to divine the statute’s general purpose, but rather to “bolster” its interpretation of the meaning of “the words of section 1503.” 635 F.2d at 905. Neither case suggests that an inquiry into legislative purpose distinct from statutory text, or the legislative history as it may inform the meaning of the text, is appropriate in venue analysis.
The majority also misplaces reliance on Kibler and Tedesco, ante at 417 & n. 3, 419, for its specific conclusion that section 1513, like section 1503, essentially proscribes “constructive contempts” “punishable by the court whose authority is challenged regardless of where the contemptuous acts may have occurred.” Tedesco, 635 F.2d at 905 (quoting United States v. O’Donnell, 510 F.2d 1190, 1195 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 1001, 95 S.Ct. 2400, 44 L.Ed.2d 668 (1975)). While both cases do suggest this conclusion, the legislative history on which they rely for their analogy of obstruction of justice offenses to contempt of court offenses establishes that, as a general matter, neither the section 1513 nor the section 1503 offenses should be treated as contempt of court offenses.
As the majority notes, section 1513 does derive from section 1503, which originated in the Act of March 2, 1831, 4 Stat. 487, “outlining] the contempt jurisdiction of the federal courts.” Tedesco, 635 F.2d at 905 (citations omitted). The very purpose of the Act of March 2, 1831, however, was to distinguish traditional contempts of court from the larger category of obstruction of justice offenses and to limit the availability of summary punishment to the former category. See Nye v. United States, 313 U.S. 33, 49, 61 S.Ct. 810, 816, 85 L.Ed. 1172 (1941) (“meticulous regard for those separate categories of offenses [obstruction of justice and contempt of court] must be had”). Congress achieved this objective by providing, respectively in sections 1 and 2, that traditional contempt of court offenses, i.e., those committed in the presence of or near the court, would be subject to summary punishment, but that the “true crimes” of obstruction of justice, id. at 49, 61 S.Ct. at 816, i.e., those committed outside the court’s presence, would be punishable only upon indictment and trial. See id. at 45-49, 61 S.Ct. at 814-16; see also id. at 49, 61 S.Ct. at 816 (noting that a particular act covered by section 2 “may also be a contempt if committed in the ‘presence’ of the Court” (emphasis added)). Thus, section 2, from which both section 1503 and 1513 derive, proscribed a “separate categor[y] of offense[]” from the traditional contempt of court offenses, except in those instances where the obstructions were actually committed in “the ‘presence’ of the Court.” Id. (quoting Savin, Petitioner, 131 U.S. 267, 276, 9 S.Ct. 699, 701, 33 L.Ed. 150 (1889)). Accordingly, there is no basis for concluding by analogy to traditional contempt offenses that venue under section 1513 should lie in the court whose authority was challenged.
*425The majority misconstrues this legislative history because of its uncritical acceptance of Kibler’s and Tedesco’s reliance on O’Donnell. O’Donnell mistakenly reasoned from the Supreme Court’s opinion in Nye that although obstruction of justice offenses under section 2 of the 1831 Act are punishable only after indictment and trial, they are still “punishable by the court whose authority is challenged,” as are the traditional contempt offenses in section 1. 510 F.2d at 1195. The legal effect of subjecting section 2 obstruction of justice offenses to the safeguards of criminal trials, and thus to the Sixth Amendment, however, is to make those offenses punishable only by the court in whose district the crime was committed.
At bottom, the majority attempts ex post to summon Kibler and Tedesco in support of its belief that venue should lie in Virginia, when in fact both cases dictate that venue is proper only in the District of Columbia. While both cases included excursions into legislative history, each concluded that venue under section 1503 was proper in the district of the judicial proceeding, only because it was clear from the statutory text, which punished anyone who “endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice,”8 that Congress criminalized the conduct of affecting those proceedings. In both eases, it was concluded that Congress’ choice of these particular verbs confirmed that the “very nature of the crime [was] affecting ... the due administration of justice,” and therefore that that criminal act was committed where the administration of justice was actually affected, i.e., in the district of the judicial proceeding. Tedesco, 635 F.2d at 905 (emphasis added); accord Kibler, 667 F.2d at 454.9
Unlike section 1503, however, section 1513 does not proscribe the acts of “influencing,” “obstructing” or “impeding” the due administration of justice; it criminalizes only the discrete acts of “engaging in conduct,” “causing bodily injury,” “damaging property” and “threatening,” none of which requires any effect on the administration of justice. Cf. United States v. Cores, 356 U.S. at 408 n. 6, 78 S.Ct. at 878 n. 6 (erimes of illegal entry “are not continuing ones, as ‘entry1 is limited to a particular locality and hardly suggests continuity”). The majority, as does the government, recognizes as much. (It is no mistake that Cofield himself relies principally on Kibler and Tedesco.) Indeed, it is this fact that forces the majority, at the government’s behest, to elevate Kibler’s and Tedesco’s incidental discussion of the legislative history and purpose of the obstruction of justice statutes to the status of analytical primacy in the first place.
III.
The pemiciousness of the majority’s holding is its intuitive appeal. Because Congress surely did assume that retaliation against a witness would represent an affront to the integrity of the judicial process, and because the integrity of the judicial process in the Eastern District, to the extent that that district is part of the “system” sought to be protected, undoubtedly was compromised by Cofield’s act of retaliation, it “makes sense” that venue should lie in that district. The consequences of this holding for not only the Sixth Amendment right itself but for the policies behind the right, however, are almost imponderable. Presumably, for example, there will hereafter be nationwide venue for all prosecutions under section 1513, because the judicial system whose integrity it is the purpose of the statute to protect is equally represented in every federal district. This is especially true where, as here, the proceeding on which venue is predicated was completed at the time of the retaliation. For the dis-*426triet of a completed proceeding certainly no better represents the “judicial system” than does any other district.
Moreover, because virtually all federal criminal statutes have as their purpose the protection of some national interest or instrumentality, the majority’s purpose test logically would lay venue for almost every federal offense in every federal jurisdiction. The “purpose” of the criminal tax laws, for example, is to “protect the public interest in preserving the integrity of the nation’s tax system.” U.S.S.G. § 2T (Introductory Commentary). The integrity of the tax system is no more compromised in the district where the acts of tax fraud or evasion were committed than in the districts where they were not. Similarly, the purpose of the antitrust laws is the “protection of the public from the evils of restraints on the competitive system.” Shotkin v. General Electric Co., 171 F.2d 236, 238 (10th Cir.1948). Because the evils incident to any monopolization of a national market are felt throughout the national economy, under the majority’s approach venue in antitrust prosecutions would he in any federal district court. And any criminal charge under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (codified as amended' at 16 U.S.C. §§ 1531-1543) could be prosecuted in any federal district, because the losses sustained through violations of that Act equally deprive all jurisdictions of the abundance of protected species. The majority’s holding that venue lies wherever the purpose of a statute is undermined or the effects of its violation felt thus invites, if not assures, precisely the excessive “leeway” in venue determinations that the Framers feared, and Justice Frankfurter observed,
not only opens the door to needless hardship to an accused by prosecution remote from home and from appropriate facilities for defense[] [but] also leads to the appearance of abuses, if not to abuses, in the selection of what may be deemed a tribunal favorable to the prosecution.
United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 275-76, 65 S.Ct. 249, 250-51, 89 L.Ed. 236 (1944).
The Constitution, not public policy, dictates venue in federal criminal prosecutions. Cofield was charged with and convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1513 for retaliating against Sheila Wormley for her testimony in a judicial proceeding. He committed this offense entirely within the District of Columbia. The Eastern District of Virginia may have an interest in prosecuting Cofield because, as part of the judicial system, it felt the effects of Cofield’s crime. The general purposes of section 1513 might even be furthered by permitting prosecution there. But Cofield has a right under the Constitution to be tried where his offense was committed. I would accord him that right, and I respectfully dissent from the majority’s failure to do so.

. Section 1513(a) punishes
[wjhoever knowingly engages in any conduct and thereby causes bodily injury to another person or damages the tangible property of another person, or threatens to do so, with intent to retaliate against any person for—
(1) the attendance of a witness or party at an official proceeding....

. Sections 1503 and 1512(c) provide as follows:
18 U.S.C. § 1503. Influencing of or injuring officer or juror generally
Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede any grand or petit juror, or officer in or of any court of the United States ... or injures any such grand or petit juror in his person or property on account of any verdict or indictment assented to by him ... or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice ... shall be fined not more than $5,000.... (Emphasis added).
18 U.S.C. § 1512. Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant
(c) Whoever intentionally harasses another person and thereby hinders; delays, prevents, or dissuades any person from—
(1) attending or testifying in an official proceeding
shall be fined not more than $25,000.... (Emphasis added).

. That Congress understood that the section 1513 offense is committed only where the defendant’s retaliatory acts are perpetrated, and thus that prosecutions under the section are to be brought only in the district where those acts were actually committed, is evidenced by the fact that it did not include in section 1512(h) the section 1513 offense as one that could be prosecuted in the district of the proceeding sought to be affected. Pub.L. No. 100-690, Title VII, § 7029(a), 102 Stat. 4397, 4398. The government argues that no such inference can be drawn from section 1513's exclusion, because section 1512(h) was prompted by a specific concern regarding "a split in the circuits” over where obstruction of justice prosecutions under section 1503 could be brought. Brief for the United States at 14 (citing 134 Cong.Rec. S17369 (daily ed. November 10, 1988) (statement of Senator Biden)). This argument would have more force if section 1512(h) extended only to section 1503 offenses. However, it covers the section 1512 offenses as well, over which, as the government apparently recognizes, there was no circuit split at the time. See United States v. Frederick, 835 F.2d 1211, 1212-15 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1013, 108 S.Ct. 1747, 100 L.Ed.2d 210 (1988). Thus, while the majority is “not impressed,” ante at 418 n. 8, there is every reason to believe that the omission of the section 1513 offenses from those in section 1512(h) for which it intended broader venue was deliberate and deserving of consideration.

. The phrase was imported into the Sixth Amendment jurisprudence seemingly without much forethought from what the Anderson Court recognized was a different context, see 328 U.S. at 703, 66 S.Ct. at 1216, in which its meaning and application were relatively clear and its use was of more obvious analytical value. See United States v. Bowman, 260 U.S. 94, 97, 43 S.Ct. 39, 40, 67 L.Ed. 149 (1922). In Bowman, the phrase *422was used in the context of determining whether Congress had conferred jurisdiction on the federal district courts to hear criminal prosecutions alleging a conspiracy to defraud the United States through false claims, where the alleged fraudulent acts occurred on the high seas. Id. Although the statute was silent as to its application to the high seas, the Court concluded from the very nature of the crime, i.e., that it was likely to be committed on the high seas and in foreign ports, that Congress intended to extend the Act to the high seas and thus to confer jurisdiction on the federal courts. Id. at 97, 100-102, 43 S.Ct. at 40, 42. The analytical value of a generalized inquiry into a crime’s "nature” when conducting the narrow Sixth Amendment inquiry into the precise conduct that constitutes the crime and the location of the acts perpetrated by the particular defendant in question is not as readily apparent.

. As a shorthand (as opposed to an analytical tool), the phrase arguably better admits of the inherent difficulty of determining for some offenses precisely what conduct or acts are encompassed within the statute’s criminal proscription. See, e.g., Anderson, 328 U.S. at 705-06, 66 S.Ct. at 1217-18 (noting difficulties "where the crime consists merely in omitting to do something which is commanded to be done”); United States v. Cores, 356 U.S. 405, 78 S.Ct. 875, 2 L.Ed.2d 873 (whether "willfully remaining” constitutes a continuing crime).

. The difficulty in ascertaining the single purpose of a particular statute, even where one exists, or for that matter the purposes of a given provision, underscores the unsuitability of a general purpose standard for determining venue. Here, for example, while the majority assumes that the purpose of section 1513 is "to protect the integrity of the judicial system,” ante at 7, it may well be that the primary purpose was merely to protect certain individuals whose personal safety might be threatened because they witnessed a crime. Section 1513 was enacted as part of the "Victim and Witness Protection Act,” Pub.L. No. 97-291, 96 Stat. 1248 (1982) (emphasis added), and the stated purpose of that Act was "to strengthen existing legal protections for victims and witnesses of federal crimes.” S.Rep. No. 532, 97th Cong., 2d Sess., pt. I at 1, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1982, p. 2515. For purposes of this dissent/however, I will assume that at least a purpose of section 1513 is to protect the integrity of the judicial system.

. When Kibler and Tedesco were decided, 18 U.S.C. § 1503 was a general obstruction of justice provision, which proscribed influencing, intimidating or retaliating against witnesses. In *4241982, Congress amended section 1503 to apply only to influencing officers or jurors, and added sections 1512 and 1513 to cover tampering with and retaliating against witnesses, respectively. Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982, Pub.L. No. 97-291, 96 Stat. 1248, 1253, 1249, 1250.

. 18 U.S.C. § 1503, amended by 18 U.S.C. § 1503 (1982) (emphasis added).

. Reasoning similarly, some courts have held that when Congress defines an offense with verbs that themselves point to a particular effect or result, venue lies wherever the effect of the criminal conduct is felt. E.g., United States v. Barham, 666 F.2d 521, 523-24 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 947, 102 S.Ct. 2015, 72 L.Ed.2d 470 and reh’g denied, 456 U.S. 1012, 102 S.Ct. 2308, 73 L.Ed.2d 1309 (1982) (obstruction of justice); see also United States v. Craig, 573 F.2d 513, 517 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 820, 99 S.Ct. 83, 58 L.Ed.2d 111 (1978) (Hobbs Act violations for “affecting or obstructing” commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, may be tried in any district where commerce is affected).