Supreme Court overturns January 6 rioters’ verdict, obstruction case

Following the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol, federal prosecutors charged more than 350 pro-Trump rioters with obstruction of justice, a charge punishable by up to 20 years in prison and part of a law enacted after revelations of massive fraud and irregularities. Shredding documents during the collapse of energy giant Enron.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, writing the majority opinion, said prosecutors had interpreted the law too broadly, giving them too much discretion to seek sentences of up to 20 years for “conduct that Congress has determined can only be punished with much shorter terms.”

The ruling, based on the majority’s ruling that prosecutors must produce damaged records, documents or other items for use in formal proceedings, sent the case of suspected rioter Joseph W. Fisher back to a lower court for additional proceedings. Other defendants charged with obstruction can also seek to have those charges dropped.

Two of the four charges Trump faces for conspiring to undermine the results of the 2020 election are based on the obstruction statute that is the subject of the court’s ruling. Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought the case against Trump, said that even if the Supreme Court rules that charges against the rioters are inappropriate, the charges should remain against the former president and presumptive Republican nominee. Trump said: Different acts.

Trump’s lawyers have presented a number of legal arguments to try to advance their case. They were excluded from the courtroom. Fisher v. United States “Big win!” Trump tweeted on social media shortly after the 6-3 ruling.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was disappointed with the ruling but argued it was not a blow to the overall investigation and prosecution of the Capitol riots.

“January 6th was an unprecedented attack on a cornerstone of our political system: the peaceful transfer of power from administration to administration,” Garland said in a statement. “The majority of the more than 1,400 defendants charged in connection with the unlawful conduct of January 6th are not affected by this decision.” Garland noted that none of the January 6 defendants have been charged solely with the crimes at issue in the case. A small number of defendants in the Fisher case are not facing other serious charges. “In cases affected by today’s ruling, the Department of Justice will take appropriate steps to comply with the Court’s decision.”

“While it remains to be seen what impact this ruling will have on other prosecutions, we are pleased to have restored this criminal statute to its rightful place in the realm of evidence tampering,” Fisher’s attorney, Jeffrey T. Green, said in a statement Friday.

More broadly, the Supreme Court’s decision will affect how prosecutors approach prosecuting those who attempt to disrupt government proceedings when protests turn violent. The ruling is consistent with a recent trend in which the Supreme Court has narrowed prosecutorial discretion in certain criminal cases, fearing overcriminalization.

In his opinion, Roberts wrote that while the government’s interpretation of the law “may be permissible literally,” the majority was unwilling to interpret it more narrowly and “turn this evidence-based statute into a one-size-fits-all solution to obstruction of justice.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said the court’s interpretation was too narrow and the majority needed to “turn the text inside out somehow.” Any This is a way to “narrow” the scope of application of the law.

Barrett said Congress should not be blamed for failing to make it clear that conduct like that which happened on January 6 could be criminally prosecuted. The obstruction statute is so broad, Barrett wrote, that it did not cover events like those on January 6. “Can anyone blame Congress for a lack of imagination?” she added.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former public defender, joined the remaining five conservatives in the majority, but she wrote separately that there was “no indication that Congress intended to enact a blanket, all-purpose obstruction statute.” She said: Charges faced Fisher and the other defendants in the Jan. 6 It could still withstand legal challenges if the Justice Department can prove in additional court proceedings that the defendants tampered with records or documents used in the counting of electoral votes.

Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor who teaches white-collar crime at George Washington University Law School, said the ruling “makes it pretty clear that the charges against Trump will survive.”

“The majority says presenting false evidence in a legal proceeding is one example of where this falls,” Eliason said. “To me, that clearly falls under the sham electoral scheme, and that’s a big part of the conspiracy charge.”

Eliasson said the court’s decision will create a headache on Jan. 6. Prosecutors will have to prepare numerous resentencing hearings and additional court filings, but said they don’t believe the overall picture of the case will change significantly. “It’s a pain to deal with, but ultimately I think it’s going to be a relatively small number of cases where it makes a real difference,” he said.

The defendants who could be most affected by the ruling are those whose only felony conviction or charge is the obstruction charge, with other charges limited to misdemeanors. About 27 rioters are serving time in prison on that felony charge alone. About 110 more are awaiting trial or sentencing, prosecutors said. Fisher He has already been granted early release.

But of the 1,400 people indicted in the storming of the Capitol, about 80 percent were not charged with disrupting the filibuster. Most were charged with trespassing on federal property and assaulting or resisting law enforcement. Prosecutors reserved obstruction charges against defendants accused of intentionally trying to stop Congress from certifying the election and formalizing the transfer of presidential power.

The challenge to the obstruction charge was filed by Fisher, an off-duty Pennsylvania state police officer who faces charges including participating in the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally and assaulting federal officers in the police line outside the Capitol.

The defense said the government applied obstructionism broadly. The law would allow prosecutors to target protesters and lobbyists who disrupt congressional committees.

The Justice Department argued that violent disruption of the peaceful transfer of power after the presidential election, including attacks on police officers, is not a minor interference. Government lawyers disagreed with the idea that using the law in this way violates the First Amendment, Prosecutors have never used the 20-year-old obstruction charges against legitimate protesters exercising their free speech rights.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. rejected calls to recuse themselves from the case after Democrats questioned whether they could avoid the appearance of bias. Justice Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginny” Thomas, pressured Trump White House officials to overturn the results of the 2020 election and was subsequently called to testify before a House committee investigating the events of January 6. Justice Alito’s wife, Martha Ann Alito, placed flags in front of the couple’s homes in Virginia and New Jersey that were greeted by the January 6 rioters.

Thomas and Alito, The separate lawsuit examines Trump’s claim to immunity from prosecution for actions he took while in the White House, including allegedly trying to block Biden’s inauguration as president. A victory for 2020. The court is expected to announce its decision in the case on Monday, the last day of the session.

Issues before the court Fisher The issue was how to interpret provisions of the law that Congress amended in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act enacted after the Enron scandal, specifically the meaning of the word “otherwise.”

The law provides for a maximum 20-year prison sentence for anyone who “(1) fraudulently alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals, or attempts to do so, any record, document, or other thing with intent to impair the integrity or availability of that thing for use in an official proceeding, or (2) otherwise obstructs, affects, or impedes, an official proceeding, or attempts to do so.”

All but one of the 15 justices who ruled on the issue in cases related to January 6 DC Federal Court The prosecutors’ view is that the second section of the law should be interpreted as “blanket.” These judges said the rioters who tried to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win “otherwise” disrupted that process. Even though the documents were not destroyed or concealed.

One exception was U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee, who sided with Fisher and said the word “other” referred only to other attempts to falsify or destroy records or documents.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in a divided opinion, overturned Nichols’ ruling, and the Supreme Court reviewed that appeals court’s opinion.

Judge Florence Pang — Biden candidate — Nichols’ The ruling was too narrow and inconsistent with the letter of the law. Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, In dissent, they wrote that a broad interpretation of the obstruction law would affect law-abiding activities such as lobbying and protesting. are in danger.

Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.