Abouammo v. United States · ¶2

Held: A defendant charged with violating § 1519 must be tried in the district where the falsifcation occurred; he cannot be tried in a different district where the investigation was located because no “conduct constituting the offense” happened there. The Constitution twice safeguards a defendant's venue right: Article III instructs that “Trial of all Crimes” shall “be held in the State where the Crimes shall have been committed,” § 2, cl. 3, and the Sixth Amendment entitles criminal defendants to a jury “of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” To implement that constitutional rule, courts generally determine the location of the offense's “essential conduct elements” by identifying “the conduct constituting the offense”—the things a defendant must do to violate the statute—and then ascertaining the place where those criminal acts occurred. United States…

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