TITLE 18 UNITED STATES CODE
CHAPTER 73 - OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Sec. 1512. Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant

Sec. 1513. Retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant

[Section 1512 & Section 1513 Are Each Separate Predicate Acts Under Chapter 96 - R.I.C.O., Sec. 1961]

18 USC Sec. 1512 01/26/98

-EXPCITE-

TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

PART I - CRIMES

CHAPTER 73 - OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

-HEAD-

Sec. 1512. Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant

-STATUTE-

(a)(1) Whoever kills or attempts to kill another person, with intent to -

(A) prevent the attendance or testimony of any person in an official proceeding;

(B) prevent the production of a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or

(C) prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings; shall be punished as provided in paragraph (2).

(2) The punishment for an offense under this subsection is -

(A) in the case of murder (as defined in section 1111), the death penalty or imprisonment for life, and in the case of any other killing, the punishment provided in section 1112; and

(B) in the case of an attempt, imprisonment for not more than
twenty years.

(b) Whoever knowingly uses intimidation or physical force, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to -

(1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;

(2) cause or induce any person to -

(A) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding;

(B) alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding;

(C) evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or

(D) be absent from an official proceeding to which such person has been summoned by legal process; or

(3) hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings; shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(c) Whoever intentionally harasses another person and thereby hinders, delays, prevents, ordissuades any person from -

(1) attending or testifying in an official proceeding;

(2) reporting to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;

(3) arresting or seeking the arrest of another person in connection with a Federal offense; or

(4) causing a criminal prosecution, or a parole or probation revocation proceeding, to be sought or instituted, or assisting in such prosecution or proceeding;

or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

(d) In a prosecution for an offense under this section, it is an affirmative defense, as to which the defendant has the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence, that the conduct consisted solely of lawful conduct and that the defendant's sole intention was to encourage, induce, or cause the other person to testify truthfully.

(e) For the purposes of this section -

(1) an official proceeding need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense; and

(2) the testimony, or the record, document, or other object need not be admissible in evidence or free of a claim of privilege.

(f) In a prosecution for an offense under this section, no state of mind need be proved with respect to the circumstance -

(1) that the official proceeding before a judge, court, magistrate, grand jury, or government agency is before a judge or court of the United States, a United States magistrate, a bankruptcy judge, a Federal grand jury, or a Federal Government agency; or

(2) that the judge is a judge of the United States or that the law enforcement officer is an officer or employee of the Federal Government or a person authorized to act for or on behalf of the Federal Government or serving the Federal Government as an adviser or consultant.

(g) There is extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section.

(h) A prosecution under this section or section 1503 may be brought in the district in which the official proceeding (whether or not pending or about to be instituted) was intended to be affected or in the district in which the conduct constituting the

Editor’s Note:

Internet protocol



THE MEDIA whether old (print and broadcast) or new (blogs, online news, and social networking sites) were once again in the center of attention in July and August, as they had been a year ago during the Aug. 23, 2010 hostage-taking incident.

The attention was not necessarily public, being mostly limited to media students, critics, and some practitioners, and was not in the same category of disturbing behavior as that displayed by certain media organizations and practitioners during the hostage-taking crisis. But the reason for the attention was unsettling enough.

While covering the flooding of Metro Manila streets early in August, a GMA-7 news crew focused on taking footage of the predicament of University of the Philippines law student Christopher Lao, who drove his car into floodwaters so deep his vehicle stalled—and whose spontaneous reaction when interviewed was to ask why he had not been informed that the flood was that deep.

Once shown, the GMA-7 footage elicited a storm of comments in the blogs and social networking sites ridiculing Lao. GMA-7 apologized for the gaffe, while disingenuously insisting that it had not really focused on the Lao incident but had been mostly covering the floods, in tacit recognition that the Lao episode was a peripheral issue, the journalistic value of relevance being the dominant criterion of news coverage. Lao ended up apologizing for his reaction, apparently because he had become aware that he was being ridiculed and criticized for his question’s (Why was I not informed?) implicit claim to entitlement. But those who ridiculed him online would not be moved, most of the bloggers and Twitter and Facebook denizens insisting that they were well within their rights, implying that those rights were absolute.

The other episode was far more distressing for its possibly long-term impact on free expression. The ABS-CBN 2 “investigative” program XXX did a report on a Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) exhibit focused on those portions of its crew apparently thought were scandalous enough to help boost its ratings, namely images by one of the artist-contributors, Mideo Cruz, that among others showed Jesus Christ with Mickey Mouse ears and with one of those Baguio ashtrays decorated with a phallus glued on his face.

This egregious example of plain sensationalism, complete with low level lighting to suggest that what was being covered was either illicit or criminal or both, was enough to ignite not only protests but also threats of physical harm not only against Cruz but also against CCP officials. The CCP took the exhibit down not because it accepted the argument from Church-connected groups that “free expression is not absolute” and which implied that being offended by an art work or anything else defines its limits, but out of fear of vandalism and their and the artist’s safety. Meanwhile, the usual suspects in the blogs, in Twitter and in Facebook, let loose the usual avalanche of insults, name-calling, and ridicule that passes for argument among the cyber terrorists who, while joining the free-expression-is-not-absolute chorus, proclaim that their right to abuse anyone is.

What disturbs is not only the precedent the CCP has established by buckling under the pressure from fundamentalist religious groups. The recklessness with which broadcast media provoked both the attacks against Lao and Cruz is similarly a matter of concern. But the misuse, abuse and debasement of the Internet as a vehicle of free expression by precisely some of those elements who claim that right, but who would deny it to others, is especially disheartening. It demonstrates the need for those who see the Internet as an authentic vehicle of informed and rational empowerment to put together an acceptable self-regulatory protocol, which, while not legally binding, would at least have the moral force to stop and prevent the further deterioration of Internet discourse.

Luis V. Teodoro



|| IN THIS ISSUE ||

Press freedom in Aquino's first year:
Unfulfilled promises and fading hopes
by Melanie Pinlac

Broadcast media fomented the “Poleteismo” controversy
by PJR Reports staff

Commentary
In defense of free expression
by Luis Teodoro and Melanie Pinlac

Are there limits to social media use?
by Kathryn Raymundo

The media, bishops, and the missing “Pajeros”
by John Antiquerra

Reporting year one of the Aquino administration
by John Antiquerra

Palace draft of freedom of information bill
Focus on restrictions?
by Kathryn Raymundo

State witness and the Ampatuan massacre trial
by Melanie Pinlac

No place for apathy
by Ilang-ilang Quijano

Regular Sections

Speaking of Media
Monitor
Obit