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The question is if they are required to render aid to federal law enforcement. Based on the warrant, it is generally illegal to "conceal an individual to prevent his discovery or arrest" and "obstructing or impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the US". The latter requires corruption, force, or threats. The former seems prone to selective enforcement, I can't imagine the DA going after every grandma who conceals her grandson from the cops.
The affidavit states that it is very convenient for ICE to arrest people in courthouses because they know that they will be unarmed. This is of course the equilibrium if the worst thing which can happen to you in a court house is getting arrested for whatever crime you are accused of in the first place. Few fugitives accused of murder answer their court summons, after all. If the worst thing which can happen to you in a courthouse is getting shipped to some hellish megaprison in some country where human rights just are not a thing, then you might think twice about appearing in court unarmed. And while the affidavit claims that so far, ICE is restricting this practice to criminal defendants, it might already have a chilling effect on witnesses and participants in civil cases.
If an accused is willing to show up in court when summoned, that is saving the state system the resources they would otherwise have to spend on tracking, arresting and imprisoning that person. If the feds freeload on the state system, in the end it will be state police who will have to spend a lot of resources on tracking illegals wanted for some minor infraction like they are wanted for murder.
Of course, some other judge signed the arrest warrant, so it seems somewhat likely that they will make that one stick.
FWIW, 1505 reads:
1071 reads:
From my layman's perspective, I think that it is probably more likely that they will get her for 1071. Escorting a known fugitive through a non-public area seems the kind of thing which qualifies.
For 1505, she obviously did not use threats or force, so she would have acted corruptly. Now, if she had learned in her function as a judge that there was a investigation against her defendant and then proceeded to warn him about that, this would be a textbook case of corruption.
However, it does not seem clear-cut that she learned of this due to her function as a judge.
Arguably, this constitutes a chain of gossip, not a formal court communication. (Of course, it could be that things learned through gossip are also subject to 1505, like if a cop learned through gossip that another cop was planning an arrest.) But then she proceeds to use her power as a judge to get the confirmation about who they are after, which seems really stupid of her -- because she no longer can claim that she did not know of the arrest warrant. So it seems likely that they will get her for that, too, if the FBI agent's account is substantially correct.
“Corruptly” there just means that she is doing that willfully, with improper purpose. It does not have anything to do with corruption as in misuse of the office. See eg this. This charge clearly applies given the allegations.
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It seems that you are leaving off the very first paragraph of Section 1505, which precedes the one you posted. It reads:
It would seem to me that if they can establish the alleged facts, it clearly fits under "removes from any place, conceals, covers up". It does not contain the required element of corruption which you wrote about, just "intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance".
I just abbreviated them:
Let me try to parse this.
[subject] Whoever,
[act] willfully
withholds,
misrepresents,
removes from any place,
conceals,
covers up,
destroys,
mutilates,
alters,
or by other means falsifies
[object of act]
any documentary material,
answers to written interrogatories,
or oral testimony,
[required attribute of object] which is the subject of such demand [e.g. of the ACPA];
[alternative act] or attempts to do so
[alternative act] or solicits another to do so
So, for that paragraph to apply, we require
a) a civil investigative demand duly and properly made under the Antitrust Civil Process Act
b) someone acting with intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance to that demand
c) that someone doing bad things to materials, interrogatories or testimony related to that demand (or incites others or attempts that).
To my knowledge, there was no ACPA demand, the judge did not act to obstruct compliance with such a demand, and a person is not a valid object to act on to fulfill the act being criminalized by that paragraph.
It looks to me that this is meant to criminalize "oh shit, we are under anti-trust investigation. Let us quickly shred all the documents, or cook our books". In one dimension it is extremely broad (anyone can commit it), but it requires intent (which is often hard to prove) and pertains only to something very specific (demands under the ACPA).
I have no clue why the hell Congress would put that specific case of destruction of evidence (of which there are certainly more, my guess is that you will also go to jail for shredding evidence you are required to surrender in labor, racketeering, or environmental investigations -- just not under that statue) with obstruction of justice.
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