Justices to weigh Enron-era charge for defendants
In the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, federal prosecutors had to decide what charges to bring against hundreds of participants in the pro-Trump mob that disrupted the certification of a presidential election for the first time in U.S. history.
In more than 350 cases, they included a federal charge that carries a 20-year maximum penalty and is part of a law enacted after the exposure of massive fraud and shredding of documents during the collapse of the energy giant Enron.
As of this month, more than 100 rioters have been convicted and sentenced under that statute for obstructing or impeding an official proceeding — the joint session of Congress convened Jan. 6 to formally certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday about whether prosecutors improperly stretched the law by charging people with that violation.
The high court’s ruling, likely to land in late June, has the potential to undo the convictions and sentences of those who have already gone to trial or pleaded guilty and upend charges pending for many more. Three
Jan. 6 defendants have already had their sentences reduced ahead of a decision by the Supreme Court.
Defense lawyers say prosecutors overreached by charging rioters with a crime that is limited to conduct that destroys or tampers with evidence sought by investigators. The government’s broad application of the statute, the lawyers warned in court filings, would allow prosecutors to target protesters or lobbyists who disrupt congressional committees.
Attorney Roman Martinez appeared before the Supreme Court a decade ago to defend the government’s use of an obstruction statute similar to the one that is the focus of Tuesday’s argument. He said the court’s decision to look more closely at the statute is consistent with the court’s recent trend of narrowing the discretion of prosecutors.
Much of the discussion Tuesday is expected to center on how to properly interpret the text of a statute Congress amended in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which followed the Enron scandal. As the justices mull how broadly prosecutors can apply the statute, the meaning of the word “otherwise” will play a central role.
The law includes a penalty of up to 20 years in prison for anyone who “corruptly (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.”
Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, defending the Justice Department, told the court in filings the second clause should be read as a “catchall” that ensures “unanticipated methods of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding — like occupying the Capitol building and forcing the suspension of Congress’s joint session certifying the election results — are prohibited, while giving a judge discretion to tailor the punishment to the crime.”