United States Second Circuit

Conviction for drug and drug-related crimes is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and vacated and remanded where: 1) the evidence was insufficient to support defendant's conviction for forcibly impeding or intimidating a federal officer under 18 U.S.C. sec. 111(a)(1) as the agents were not being threatened with immediate harm; 2) defendant's sufficiency challenge to his obstruction of justice conviction was patently without merit; 3) there was no plain error in the district court's jury instructions regarding the specific intent element of the obstruction of justice charge; and 4) although defendant's sentence is vacated in light of the reversal of his sec. 111 conviction, there is still no merit to defendant's procedural challenges to his sentence.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/06/2009
• Published 04/06/2009

Judges

• REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judge:, Before:  STRAUB, RAGGI, Circuit Judges, and SESSIONS, District Judge.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Anirudh Bansal, Assistant United States Attorney (Jesse M. Furman, Katherine Polk Failla, Assistant United States Attorneys, of counsel), for Michael J. Garcia, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, New York, for Appellee., Avrom Robin (Ira D. London, of counsel), Law Office of Ira D. London, New York, New York, for Defendant-Appellant.