US Supreme Court rules in favor of rioters January 6, Legal News, ET LegalWorld

Washington, June 28, 2024 – Prosecutors overreached when they charged Jan. 6 rioters with obstruction in an effort to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election, the U.S. Supreme Court said Friday in a case that could have overturned dozens of convictions.

The case went to trial involving former police officer Joseph Fischer, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, who entered the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, along with hundreds of other people.

Writing the opinion for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said prosecutors’ interpretation of the law “would criminalize a wide range of mundane conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists to decades in prison.”

The government “must establish whether the defendant has compromised the availability or integrity of records, documents, items or other things used in an official proceeding or has attempted to do so for the purposes of an official proceeding,” he wrote.

The case was decided 6-3, with Ketanji Brown Jackson joining the court’s conservatives. Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

It now returns to a lower court, which will decide whether Fischer’s indictment can still stand under a narrower interpretation of “obstruction.”

A total of 52 rioters have been convicted and sentenced for obstruction of justice, 27 of whom are currently in prison, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

“The vast majority of the more than 1,400 people charged with unlawful conduct committed on January 6 will not be affected by this decision,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.

– The meaning of the word “differently” –

At the heart of the case was the interpretation of the word “otherwise” in a relevant provision, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was enacted after the destruction of documents in connection with the 2001 Enron scandal.

It provides for a penalty of up to 20 years in prison for anyone who corruptly manipulates documents to prevent their use in official proceedings or “otherwise impedes, influences or obstructs any official proceeding or attempts to do so.”

The majority said the phrase “otherwise” gives prosecutors excessive discretion, allowing them to bring charges that far exceed Congress’s original intent.

However, in her dissenting opinion, Barrett said the fact that the joint session of Congress on January 6 was an official proceeding was not in dispute.

“Given these considerations, the question that Fischer could be tried for ‘obstructing, influencing or obstructing an official proceeding’ appears to be an open one,” she wrote, accusing the majority of “rewinding the text to find some way — any way”. narrow down the scope of the appropriate subsection.

The case also has potentially significant implications for Donald Trump, who faces four charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith over his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The Republican Party’s presidential candidate was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding, a session of Congress called to certify Biden’s victory.

He was also charged with conspiring to deprive Americans of the right to vote and have their votes counted.

That case, however, remains on hold until the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s claims that he is immune from criminal prosecution, which the justices are now scheduled to issue on Monday.

ia/st