Common law jurisdictions other than the United States tend to use the wider offense of perverting the course of justice.
In federal law, crimes constituting obstruction of justice are defined primarily in Chapter 73 of Title 18 of the United States Code.
[9] One of the broadest provisions in the chapter, known as the Omnibus Clause, states that anyone who "corruptly... endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice" in connection with a pending court proceeding is subject to punishment.
In an effort to prevent such abuses, Congress passed a law in 1831 limiting the application of the summary contempt procedures to offenses committed in or near the court.
A new section, which survives today as the Omnibus Clause, was added to punish contempts committed outside of the court, but only after indictment and trial by jury.
[21] The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 strengthened the obstruction laws regarding destruction of evidence before an investigation or proceeding has begun, in response to accounting firm Arthur Andersen's widely reported shredding of documents related to the Enron scandal.