On January 6, 2021, pro-Trump protesters gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. President Trump’s Electoral College.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has restricted federal prosecutors from charging defendants accused of participating in the January 6 Capitol riot with obstructing Congress. The court’s ruling also casts doubt on at least two of the four felony counts in President Trump’s election subversion indictment.
In an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court ruled that the government must prove that “the defendant compromised the availability or integrity of a record, document, item, or other item used in an official proceeding.”
Prosecutors used a key criminal statute to prosecute more than 350 of the riot’s most violent participants.
The regulation has two parts. Part One criminalizes the corrupt alteration or destruction of documents and records relating to official proceedings. Part II makes it a crime to otherwise obstruct or prevent an official proceeding, in this case Congress’s counting of the Electoral College votes.
Roberts said the statute is limited to document and evidence destruction, and otherwise the term is not meant to expand the meaning of the law into a catch-all provision.
The vote was 6-3, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said be opposed to.
At issue is a two-part regulation. Part One criminalizes the corrupt alteration or destruction of documents and records relating to official proceedings. Part II makes it a crime to otherwise obstruct or prevent an official proceeding, in this case Congress’s counting of the Electoral College votes.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the court’s majority, said the statute was limited to document and evidence destruction and that otherwise the term was not meant to expand the meaning of the law into a catch-all provision.
The case was brought by Joseph Fisher, a former police officer in a small town near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who joined the mob on January 6 and even recorded a four-minute cellphone video in which he can be heard yelling ” charge”. and got into an argument with police.
According to prosecutors, Fisher also threatened violence in text messages before Jan. 6, including sending one in which he wrote: “Take the Democratic Congress to the gallows… If they can’t breathe, they can’t vote.” , haha. When the FBI later arrested him, he yelled obscenities at agents and his own police chief and tried to hide the phone he used to record the events at the Capitol.
The Justice Department maintains that it limited its use of the statute at issue in this case, requiring evidence that Fisher and other similarly charged defendants specifically intended to disrupt the counting of Electoral College votes and focusing on elements such as the defendants’ readiness to commit violence. Bring tactical or paramilitary equipment to the Capitol. During oral arguments, Deputy Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar told the judge that prosecutors had charged about 1,400 defendants in connection with the riots, but only 350 of them had been charged with obstruction of justice because it required Demonstrated intent to disrupt vote counting.
Defendant Fischer’s attorney, Jeffrey Green, maintained that the fundamental reason the government chose to use the statute was that it carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. He said that while no one actually received such a severe penalty, it was “a very big cudgel” for prosecutors to use when negotiating plea bargains with defendants.
Friday’s decision is already having consequences. Some judges had previously allowed a handful of convicted defendants to be released from prison early ahead of Friday’s case outcome. Now, many more will have to be retried, retried, or simply released.
But while Friday’s decision may intuitively be seen as a devastating blow to prosecutors, a deeper look at the data concludes the impact will be “minimal.” New York University law professor Ryan Goodman is the lead author of the study, published by Just Security, which relied on NPR’s detailed database of cases from the January 6 Capitol riot.
Goodman noted that Trump is different from the Capitol rioters because the obstruction charges against him involve interfering with the Electoral College certificates that arrived at the counters for counting on Jan. 6 and using false electoral certificates — all of which appear to be obstruction Provisions on tampering with evidence for judicial crimes.
As for the January 6 rioters, the study found that of the 1,417 people charged so far in connection with the January 6 invasion, only 346, or 24 percent, were charged with obstruction of justice. Of those 346 defendants, 128 were convicted by juries of obstruction of justice and another crime, usually another felony, but that charge was still valid.
Another group of 48 people pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges, but that charge has now disappeared. But looming over all those guilty pleas is the fact that the plea agreements unanimously included an important caveat: If the conviction is “dismissed for any reason,” the government reserves the right to prosecute other crimes alleged by prosecutors. Consent was dismissed at sentencing.
Finally, the study found that as of Friday, 71 people were still awaiting trial on obstruction of justice charges, but more than half were charged with another felony. While the penalties for these felonies may not be as severe as those for obstruction of justice, if a defendant is convicted of these other crimes, the sentencing judge may consider the conduct charged in the obstruction of justice when determining the sentence.
In addition to Professor Goodman, the study’s authors include Georgetown University Law Professor Mary McCord, a longtime federal prosecutor who has served in various senior positions within the Justice Department, Including the head of the criminal division and the acting assistant attorney general for national security; Andrew Weissmann, a law professor at New York University who is also a long-time prosecutor at the Justice Department and served as chief of the fraud unit and as legal counsel to the FBI and the lead prosecutor in then-President Trump’s Mueller investigation.
Of course, Donald Trump, if re-elected, could pardon all of the January 6 defendants. He has not committed to doing so, although he has frequently referred to the Jan. 6 criminals as “hostages” and “patriots.” During his first term, he pardoned more high-profile friends and political allies, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who was convicted on corruption charges and for fundraising for the wall. Stephen Bannon, who was accused of fraud.
In addition, Trump pardoned his close friend and adviser Roger Stone, who was charged with witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and Russian interference in 2016 over what he and then-candidate Trump knew. He lied to Congress during his campaign to smear Hillary Clinton. He pardoned former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying to White House officials; he pardoned Charles, the father of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner Kushner; Kushner Sr. pleaded guilty to 18 criminal counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions; Trump also pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI Lie and then withdraw your guilty plea.
