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I was under the impression that you don't need an underlying act to charge or convict someone with obstruction/other crimes of concealment because if they were

by duped 2y ago

I was under the impression that you don't need an underlying act to charge or convict someone with obstruction/other crimes of concealment because if they were so good at concealing the crime you wouldn't be able to prove the underlying act, even if you could prove that they concealed it. For example if a court subpoenaed a document while investigating a crime but then the suspect destroyed the document, you don't need to prove that the underlying crime happened to prove that the suspect attempted to conceal it.

samatman 2y ago
If a court subpoenas evidence, and someone destroys that evidence, that's destruction of evidence, which is a specific crime. My point is more general than that. The reason someone could be prosecuted for that, even though it leads to a lack of conviction for the originally-investigated crime, is that destruction of evidence is itself criminal behavior. One could construct situations where a third party with no knowledge of the subpoena destroys a document for ordinary reasons, after the subpoena is issued. That person is going to be very closely scrutinized, possibly charged, but it's entirely possible to be found innocent of a crime there. Say a corporation employs a document warehouse and the contract says that documents are to be destroyed after 60 days. A court orders on day 58 that those documents be remanded, but the corporation doesn't tell the warehouse, and the court is not aware that the documents are in that warehouse, so they don't send the subpoena to the warehouse. The operator of the warehouse is not guilty of destruction of evidence in this case. The party at the corporation whose duty it was to produce the documents is guilty. Assuming this is a high-profile case, there will absolutely be additional subpoenas to demonstrate that the operator was not informed of the need to retain the documents, but mens rea must be demonstrated because shredding documents is not per se illegal behavior.

by duped 2y ago

samatman 2y ago

If a court subpoenas evidence, and someone destroys that evidence, that's destruction of evidence, which is a specific crime. My point is more general than that. The reason someone could be prosecuted for that, even though it leads to a lack of conviction for the originally-investigated crime, is that destruction of evidence is itself criminal behavior. One could construct situations where a third party with no knowledge of the subpoena destroys a document for ordinary reasons, after the subpoena is issued. That person is going to be very closely scrutinized, possibly charged, but it's entirely possible to be found innocent of a crime there. Say a corporation employs a document warehouse and the contract says that documents are to be destroyed after 60 days. A court orders on day 58 that those documents be remanded, but the corporation doesn't tell the warehouse, and the court is not aware that the documents are in that warehouse, so they don't send the subpoena to the warehouse. The operator of the warehouse is not guilty of destruction of evidence in this case. The party at the corporation whose duty it was to produce the documents is guilty. Assuming this is a high-profile case, there will absolutely be additional subpoenas to demonstrate that the operator was not informed of the need to retain the documents, but mens rea must be demonstrated because shredding documents is not per se illegal behavior.