Wounded man who invaded Senate with knife sentenced to prison
An Alabama man was sentenced on Tuesday to nearly two years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol and invading the Senate floor with a knife on his hip and a gaping wound on his face.
A police officer shot Joshua Matthew Black in his left cheek with a crowdcontrol munition outside the Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The bloody hole in his face didn't stop Black from occupying the Senate with other rioters after lawmakers evacuated the chamber.
“Black was a notorious offender during the attack on the Capitol,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. “The nation was shocked and appalled at the events of January 6, and perhaps no other incident sparked as much as outrage and distress as Black and other rioters' occupation of the Senate Chamber.”
Prosecutors had recommended a five-year prison sentence for Black, 47, of Leeds, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Black to 22 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release, according to court records.
Black didn't testify before the judge convicted him in January of five charges, including three felonies, after hearing trial testimony without a jury. Jackson also acquitted him of one count, obstructing a congressional proceeding.
Black joined the mob that disrupted the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory. But the judge concluded that prosecutors
didn't prove Black knowingly intended to obstruct or impede the proceedings.
Defense attorney Clark Fleckinger said Black, an evangelical Christian, was motivated by his religious beliefs. Black believed God directed him to go to Washington so he could “plead the blood of Jesus” on the Senate floor “to foster Congressional atonement for what he perceived to be the transgressions of (a) corrupt Democratic Party and Republican Party,” Fleckinger wrote in a court filing.
More than 1,000 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. Roughly 500 of them have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to over 14 years. Nineteen have received prison sentences of five years or longer, according to an Associated Press review of court records.
Black, who runs a lawnmowing business, traveled alone to Washington, D.C., to attend then-President Donald Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. He joined the crowd walking to the Capitol before Trump finished his speech.