Damned if you do, damned if you don’t? Seen at FourthAmendment.com:
Defendant attempted to thwart a search of cell phones in his car tried to break one such that it had to be forensically reviewed to get information off of it. He wasn’t under arrest. Still, his actions qualified for a 2 level obstruction enhancement under USSG § 3C1.1. United States v. Manning, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 16411 (8th Cir. July 5, 2024).
Other cases of enhancement for obstruction can be found on SentencingCases.com. Another one from the Eighth Circuit held that falsely denying that the person had other devices was deemed to justify a sentencing enhancement. U.S. v. Davenport, __ F.3d __ (8th Cir. Dec. 14, 2018) No. 17-3496.