The Supreme Court has made it harder for the government to charge participants in the January 6, 2021 uprising with obstruction of official proceedings. The ruling, handed down on Friday, casts uncertainty over hundreds of charges against the uprising.
Joseph Fischer, the former police officer who stormed the Capitol on January 6, has contested the charges against him under a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Accounting Reform Act of 2002 that makes it unlawful to interfere with an official proceeding. . He argued that this provision should not apply to the January 6 incident because it is intended to apply only to cases of obstruction of proceedings, such as altering or destroying documents. The majority of the court agreed.
In a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court declared that the government has the burden of proving that the defendant “impaired the availability or integrity of a record, document, article, or other thing used in an official proceeding or attempted to do so.”
The court’s decision will likely lead to the dismissal of similar charges filed against other participants in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. About 170 people involved in the attack were found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding.
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, could also see charges under the statute dismissed in a case brought by federal prosecutors alleging his role in and leading to the Jan. 6 incident. The charges relate to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
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The decision will depend on the definition of the word “otherwise” in the statute in question. The full clause is as follows (emphasis added):
(c) Whoever corrupts—
(1) Altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing, or attempting to do so, any record, document, or other object with the intent to impair the integrity or availability of such object for use in official proceedings; or
(2) Otherwise interfere with, influence, interfere with, or attempt to interfere with, any official proceeding;
An offence under this Act is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 20 years or by both.
Fischer argued that “otherwise” should be read to mean “similarly,” while the government said “otherwise” meant “in a different way.”
If the word is read to mean “similar,” then the provisions against obstruction of official proceedings should be read as flowing from and connected to the language of the document in the preceding line. This requires that charges be filed only when someone interferes with an official proceeding by altering, destroying or damaging records or documents.
But the government’s interpretation of the law denied any connection between the two lines, allowing prosecution of anyone who interfered with official proceedings in any way, whether or not it involved a document.
The court upheld Fisher’s definition, saying the law was intended to close a loophole in the criminal code prohibiting the destruction of evidence, and that previous court decisions had defined “otherwise” in a similar way.
Fisher is not entirely innocent. He still faces several charges for his actions on Jan. 6, including assaulting a police officer and disturbing the peace. Most of the rebels charged under this law also face other charges.
Trump’s dismissal could be complicated by the fact that he was directly involved in the document obstruction scheme, a key component of his attempt to overturn his reelection loss that involved replacing the actual Electoral College votes. Casting in 6 states with fake electoral college Votes being counted on January 6th. Federal prosecutors could argue that Trump was clearly involved in an attempt to disrupt the official process by altering documents with the intent of compromising their availability during those proceedings, which the individual insurrectionists were not.
Trump has argued that the sham electoral system is not a crime because states sent in multiple slates of voters when the results were challenged in the past. He also argued to the Supreme Court that he has “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any official act he performed while in office. State prosecutors 25 fake voters indicted He was indicted in three states for making false claims and submitting false documents.
