[gruez]

Knowingly obstructing investigations is illegal even if there isn't an active search warrant

>During the fall of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Enron's accounting firm, instructed its employees to destroy documents relating to Enron after Andersen officials learned they would soon be investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen_LLP_v._United_...

The conviction was overturned, but only on procedural grounds

[mpdpsycho]

Mmm, having an example here is good. I was thinking about how in larger cases like this it would be almost certainly always agreeable that the party disposing of evidence is at least somewhat aware of their guilt and that the act is obstruction regardless of warrant.

But, let’s say somebody unknowingly has evidence to a case, then in the time it takes for law enforcement to retrieve it, accidentally or otherwise destroys it, but necessarily not knowing that it was any sort of evidence. Would a case hold up in that situation if law decides to pin it on the person in question? Personally, I think situationally, it should not, but I don’t know how much faith I have that that would be the case.

Anyways, pertaining to the topic - in the same spirit of case-by-case, I’m not surprised by the outcome even if I’m glad the functionality worked here.