Fowler v. United States (2010)
- Docket
- 10-5443
- Decided
- 2010-01-01
Summary
Question: To prove a criminal violation of the federal witness tampering statute when a defendant allegedly kills a witness, must the government prove that the victim would have provided information regarding a crime to a court or a law enforcement officer? Conclusion: Yes. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded the lower court order in a decision by Justice Stephen Breyer. "The Government must show that there was a reasonable likelihood that a relevant communication would have been made to a federal officer," Breyer wrote. Justice Antonin Scalia filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in which he wrote that "although I agree the case should be remanded for the Eleventh Circuit to consider whether the objection to sufficiency of the evidence was preserved or whether the District Court committed plain error, I would hold that there was insufficient evidence to support Fowler's conviction." Meanwhile, Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined. The majority opinion " veers off course when it goes on to hold that the prosecution was required to show that, if Officer Horner had not been killed, there was a 'reasonable likelihood' that his information would have reached a federal officer," Alito wrote.