In the ruling on Friday, the US Supreme Court declared that it was an exaggeration by prosecutors to charge January 6 rioters with obstruction for trying to prevent the confirmation of 2020 Presidential election. This pronouncement would lead to review of convictions happened in many cases including a former policeman and Trump supporter Joseph Fischer, who stormed into Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
The majority opinion penned by Chief Justice John Roberts noted that such a reading of the statute would “criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyist(s) to decades in prison.” He also stated that Government must establish that the defendant impaired availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding or attempted to do so.”
In a 6-3 decision with Ketanji Brown Jackson joining the court’s conservatives. The dissent authored by Amy Coney Barrett was joined by liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The case will now be remanded back to a lower court to see if Fischer’s indictment can withstand this more restrictive interpretation of obstruction.
According to DoJ statistics, there have been convictions obtained against 52 individuals for obstructions with twenty-seven still serving their sentences. This resolution does not affect “the vast majority” of more than fourteen hundred persons charged over illegal activities of January 6th according Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The case hinged on what Congress meant when it used “otherwise” in drafting Sarbanes-Oxley Act after Enron destroyed its records in 2001. They argued that too much discretion is given prosecutors because the word “otherwise” allows them pursue charges outside those originally intended by Congress. In her dissenting opinion Barrett maintained that the joint session became an official proceeding once it began while accusing the majority of performing “textual backflips to find some way — any way” to limit the scope of the relevant subsection.
There are also implications for Donald Trump in this case who is facing four federal felonies filed against him by Special Counsel Jack Smith for his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to deny Americans the right to vote and have their votes counted. However, this case is currently on hold pending the supreme court’s ruling on Trump’s claims of immunity from criminal prosecution which will be made known on Monday.
