OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE. The act by which ope or more persons attempts to pre vent, or do prevent, the execution of lawful prOcess. It applies also to obstructing the 'administration of justice in any way—as by hindering witnesses from appearing.
The officer must be prevented by actual violence, or by threatened violence accompa nied by the exercise of force, or by those having capacity to employ it, by which the officer is prevented from executing his writ. The officer is not required to expose his per son by a personal conflict with the offender; U. S. v. Lowry, 2 Wash. C. C. 169, Fed. Cas. No. 15,636. See Crumpton v. Newman, 12 Ala. 199, 46 Am. Dec. 251; State v. Welch, 37 Wis. 196; Pierce v. State, 17 Tex. App. 232 ; Whart. § 652.
This is an offence against public justice of a very high and presumptuous nature; and more particularly so where the obstruction is of an arrest upon criminal process. A. person opposing an arrest upon criminal pro cess becomes thereby particeps crinunis; that is, an accessory in felony, and a princi pal in high treason; 4 Bla. Com. 128; 1 Russ. Cr. 360. See U. S. v. Bachelder, 2 Gall. 15, Fed. Cas. No. 14,490; State v. Noyes, 25 Vt. 415; State v. Halley, 2 Strobh. (S. C.)
73; State v. Henderson, 15 Mo. 486 ; Petti bone v. U. S., 148 U. S. 197, 13 Sup. Ct. 542, L. Ed. 419.
The fact that a person whom a mayor at tempts to arrest does not know that he is authorized by the charter of the city to make arrests, does not change his responsi bility for acts committed in resisting arrest ; State v. Williams, 36 S. C. 493, 15 S. E. 554; one who resists an officer trying to arrest him, knowing him to be such, does so at his peril; State v. Russell a(Ia.) 76 N. W. 653; if a peace officer making an arrest use undue force, yet if the person resist, not in self defence, but to escape arrest, it is an of fence; State v. Dennis, 2 Marv. (Del.) 433, 43 Atl. 261; so is pointing an unloaded gun at an officer making an arrest ; State v. Rus sell (Ia.) 76 N. W. 653 ; but where a person, who is not vested by law with authority to make an arrest, attempts to do so, he acts as a private citizen, and one who opposes him therein is not guilty of opposing an offi cer; U. S. v. Baird, 48 Fed. 554.
Witnesses may be hindered by persuasion, advice or threats; State v. Bringgold, 40 Wash. 12, 82 Pac. 132, 5 Ann. Cas. 716.