Procedures used by the federal Bureau of Prisons to investigate assaults on inmates by corrections officers are official proceedings under an obstruction of justice statute, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled.

Interpreting a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the circuit upheld the convictions of three former corrections officers for obstruction in connection with a 2006 assault on a prisoner at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.