In United States

criminal procedure Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail o ...

terminology, a process crime is an offense against the

judicial process Legal process (sometimes simply process) is any formal notice or writ by a court obtaining jurisdiction over a person or property. Common forms of process include a summons, subpoena, mandate, and warrant. Process normally takes effect by ...

. These crimes include

failure to appear A "failure to appear" (FTA) occurs when a defendant or respondent does not come before a tribunal as directed in a summons. FTAs are also known as "bail jumping." In the United States, FTAs are punishable by fines, incarceration, or both when commi ...

false statements Making false statements () is the common name for the United States federal process crime laid out in Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which generally prohibits knowingly and willfully making false or fraudulent statements, o ...

obstruction of justice Obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, is an act that involves unduly influencing, impeding, or otherwise interfering with the justice system, especially the legal and procedural tasks of prosecutors, investigators, or other gov ...

contempt of court Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cou ...

and

perjury Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...

. Process crimes are sometimes a basis for a "pretextual prosecution", in which prosecutors bring process crime charges against a defendant in order to punish them for another crime for which a conviction is more difficult to obtain.

Definition

Process crimes are the offenses that "interfere with the procedures and administration of justice". They are prosecuted because they are considered to harm the public interest in the functioning and integrity of the judicial system. There is a broad range of process crimes, covered in the U.S. by a variety of federal and state laws. The five "archetypal" process charges are

and

. Persons who do not cooperate with an

arrest An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be quest ...

may be charged with such process crimes as

resisting arrest Resisting arrest, or simply resisting, is an illegal act of a suspected criminal either fleeing, threatening, assaulting, or providing a fake ID to a police officer during arrest. In most cases, the person responsible for resisting arrest is crimi ...

, flight to elude arrest or battery on police officers. In U.S. legal literature, prosecutions for process crimes are covered largely as a phenomenon of federal criminal law. But they are also frequently prosecuted in

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * '' Our ...

courts.

Pretextual prosecutions

Process crimes lend themselves to being prosecuted regardless of the actual harm done to the furtherance of justice. They are therefore frequently a basis for "pretextual prosecutions", a prosecutorial tactic in which "prosecutors target defendants based on suspicion of one crime but prosecute them for another". The classic example is the pretextual prosecution of the gangster

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...

for

tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the taxp ...

rather than for his many other crimes in 1931. To prosecutors, process crimes are particularly suitable for such purposes because they "carry a strong veneer of legitimacy" (i.e., most people agree that lying in court should be punishable), because they carry significant penalties, and because the prosecution is able to help produce these crimes. For instance, prosecutors can set up situations such as

grand jury A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a per ...

hearings or

discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

requests in which process crimes – lies and omissions – tend to frequently occur. Process crimes also tend to be easier to prove than other crimes, and they often do not present a

statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In mo ...

problem because they can arise late in the investigation of another crime that is more difficult to prove. Examples in which process crimes are used for pretextual prosecutions include using "dissuading a witness" charges to sanction

domestic abuse Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner v ...

rs, or contempt charges for violating court orders to stay away from a place or person to punish suspected street criminals. On occasion, prosecutors may even go beyond a pretextual prosecution (through which they seek to sanction a real, if perhaps unprovable, offense) and use process crime charges merely to punish a defendant for their perceived obstinacy or insubordination.

Footnotes

References

* * *{{cite journal , last1=Richman , first1=Daniel C., last2=Stuntz , first2=William J. , title=Al Capone's Revenge: An Essay on the Political Economy of Pretextual Prosecution , journal=

Columbia Law Review The ''Columbia Law Review'' is a law review edited and published by students at Columbia Law School. The journal publishes scholarly articles, essays, and student notes. It was established in 1901 by Joseph E. Corrigan and John M. Woolsey, who se ...

, date=2005 , volume=105 , issue=2 , pages=583–640, jstor=4099318 Criminal procedure