Sentencing – Obstruction of justice enhancement

Listen to this article

U.S. Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing – Obstruction of justice enhancement

A criminal defendant who, by pretending to be mentally incompetent in an effort to delay or derail his prosecution, is guilty of an obstruction of justice within the meaning of section 3C1.1 of the federal sentencing guidelines.

“The defendant’s second argument, which has greater merit, is that if exaggerating one’s mental deficits at a competence hearing is deemed obstruction of justice (provided it causes, or is found to have been an attempt to cause, delay or other disruption of the criminal proceeding), defendants and their lawyers will be reluctant to request such a hearing even if they have solid grounds for the request. They will be afraid that the judge, if he decides that the defendant is competent to stand trial after all, will decide that he requested the hearing only to delay or derail the criminal proceeding. But that is just to say that when in doubt about the bona fides of the defendant’s behavior at the competence hearing the judge should not find an obstruction of justice. In this case there was no basis for serious doubt that the defendant was deliberately exaggerating his symptoms and by doing so trying to disrupt or at least delay the criminal proceeding, and that he succeeded in delaying his trial by months (though success is not a requirement for imposing an enhancement for obstruction of justice—an attempt will do as well).”

Affirmed.

13-3610 U.S. v. Wilbourn

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Miller, J., Posner, J.

Full Text