The Ninth Circuit’s en banc reversal of baseball home run king Barry Bonds’ 2011 obstruction of justice conviction1 and the Justice Department’s late July announcement that it would drop the case after a more than decade-long investigation and prosecution2 have prompted some to call for a reassessment of Bonds’ place in baseball history.3 That controversy is bound to endure. For white-collar criminal practitioners, the Bonds case presents another example of how the breadth of the federal obstruction laws makes them a nearly irresistible choice for prosecutors, and of the seemingly endless struggle of the courts to define appropriate limits on their reach.
History suggests that Congress has found obstruction a difficult topic on which to legislate, though not for lack of trying. The primary federal obstruction statutes are notable for their unusual degree of complexity and overlap. In recent decades, often in response to highly publicized cases, Congress repeatedly has attempted to remedy various perceived “holes” in the coverage of these laws. These legislative efforts and prosecutors’ tendency to push on the margins have created further vexing questions of statutory breadth, and have required the courts to impose limitations to cabin these laws within reasonable bounds. The Supreme Court’s decision last year in the much-discussed “fish” case, Yates v. United States, is one example.4 The Bonds decision is another prominent chapter in this saga, highlighting persistent questions regarding the reach of the “catchall” clause of a primary obstruction statute, Section 1503 of Title 18.
