Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation’s capital to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over President Trump in the 2020 election.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has limited the number of defendants accused of participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot who can be charged by federal prosecutors with obstruction of Congress. The court’s decision also casts at least a cloud of doubt over two of the four felony counts in the election-overthrow case. President Trump’s indictment.
In an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court ruled that the government must prove “that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of a record, document, object, or other thing used in an official proceeding.”
Prosecutors used a key criminal statute to indict more than 350 of the most violent participants during the riot.
The Code has two parts. The first section makes it a crime to alter or destroy documents and records relating to an official proceeding. The second section makes it a crime to obstruct or interfere with an official proceeding—in this case, the congressional counting of electoral college votes.
Roberts said the statute was limited to the destruction of documents and evidence, and that the wording was not meant to extend the meaning of the law into a general provision.
The vote was 6 to 3 with Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in dissenting.
The issue here is a two-part law. The first section states that the alteration or destruction of documents and records relating to an official proceeding is a crime. The second section makes it a crime to obstruct or interfere with an official proceeding—in this case, the congressional counting of electoral college votes.
Writing for the court majority, Chief Justice Roberts said the law was limited to the destruction of documents and evidence, and that the different wording did not extend the law’s meaning into a blanket provision.
The case was brought by Joseph Fischer, a former police officer in a town near Harrisburg, Pa., who joined the crowd on Jan. 6, even recording a four-minute cellphone video. movement, in which he was heard yelling, “charge,” and was seen scuffling with police officers.
According to prosecutors, Fischer, in the text messages, also threatened violence before Jan. 6, including sending a text message that said “put the Democratic Congress on the gallows… impossible vote if they can’t breathe lol.” And when the FBI came to arrest him later, he shouted obscenities at his agents and sheriffs, and he sought to conceal the phone he used to record the attacks. event at the Capitol.
The Justice Department has argued that it is limiting its use of the statute at issue in the case by requiring evidence that Fischer and other similarly charged defendants had a specific intent to disrupt the counting of electoral votes, and by focusing on factors such as the defendants’ preparation for violence, and bringing tactical or paramilitary equipment to the Capitol. During oral arguments, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that prosecutors have brought charges against about 1,400 defendants in connection with the riot, but only 350 of them have been charged under the obstruction statute because it is necessary to prove intent to disrupt the counting of ballots.
Fischer’s attorney, Jeffrey Green, said the government chose to use the statute because it carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Although no one has ever actually received such a harsh sentence, he said, for prosecutors it is “a really big stick” to use in negotiating plea deals with defendants.
Friday’s decision has had consequences. While awaiting the outcome of Friday’s case, some judges had previously allowed a small number of convicted defendants to be released from prison early. Now a larger number will have to be re-sentenced, retried or simply released.
But while Friday’s decision could intuitively be seen as a devastating blow to prosecutors, a deep dive into the data concludes that the impact will be “minimal.” New York University law professor Ryan Goodman is the lead author of the study published by “Just Security,” which draws on NPR’s detailed database of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Goodman notes that Trump is different from the Capitol rioters because the obstruction charges against him involve attempts to interfere with the electoral college certificates arriving at the counting table on January 6 and the use of fake voter certificates — all of which would seem to fall under the evidence tampering provision of the obstruction statute.
As for the January 6 rioters, the study found that of the 1,417 people charged in connection with the January 6 invasion, only 346, or 24%, were charged under the obstruction statute. . Of those 346, 128 defendants were convicted by juries of obstruction and one other charge, usually another felony, remains active.
Another group of 48 people pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges, which have since been dismissed. But what’s notable about all of these plea deals is that they included a key provision: In the event that the conviction is “dismissed for any reason,” the government retains the right to pursue other alleged crimes that prosecutors agreed not to prosecute or agreed to dismiss at sentencing.
Ultimately, the study found that as of Friday, 71 people were still awaiting trial on obstruction charges, but more than half were also charged with another felony. Although those felonies may not carry penalties as severe as obstruction, if the defendant is convicted of those other crimes, the sentencing judge is allowed to consider the conduct charged in the obstruction case when determining the length of the sentence.
The study’s authors, in addition to Goodman, include Georgetown law professor Mary McCord, a longtime federal prosecutor who has held several top Justice Department posts, including head of the Justice Department. criminal and acting assistant attorney general for national security; and NYU law professor Andrew Weissmann, also a longtime Justice Department prosecutor who served as chief of the fraud section, consultant to the FBI, and lead prosecutor in the Mueller investigation of President Trump when there.
Of course, Donald Trump, if re-elected, could pardon all of the Jan. 6 defendants. He has not yet committed to doing so, though he has often referred to the Jan. 6 offenders as “hostages” and “patriots.” In his first term, he pardoned far more prominent friends and political allies, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, convicted of corruption, and Stephen Bannon, indicted on fraud charges in a wall-funding scheme in which he allegedly pocketed $1 million from charities.
Additionally, Trump pardoned his close friend and advisor Roger Stone, who was indicted on charges of witness tampering, obstruction, and lying to Congress about what he and candidate Trump did when that knew about Russia’s efforts to discredit Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign; he pardoned former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying to White House officials; he pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner; The elder Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 criminal counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions; and Trump also pardoned former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and then recanted his guilty pleas.
