Supreme Court casts doubt on obstruction charges against hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters
WASHINGTON
The Supreme Court cast doubt Tuesday on the legality of obstruction charges lodged against some 300 rioters arrested for breaking into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The court’s conservatives questioned whether the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was aimed at corporate accounting fraud, can be used more broadly to prosecute those who obstruct “any official proceeding,” including Congress’ 2021 certification of President Joe Bithe den’s election victory.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch noted that the law made it a crime to destroy or conceal documents to impair an “official proceeding,” but they voiced doubt over extending it to any disruptions of a proceeding.
“Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial qualify?” Gorsuch asked. “Would a heckler in today’s audience qualify? Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in prison?”
While the court’s three liberals appeared to agree with prosecutors that the law can be read broadly,
six conservatives sounded skeptical.
A ruling that limits the obstruction law could also undercut the prosecution of former President Donald Trump. Two of the four criminal charges against him are based on the obstruction law.
Special counsel Jack Smith, however, has said the charges against Trump rest on stronger grounds because Trump allegedly schemed to submit false slates of electors to Congress.
Trump’s case did not figure in Tuesday’s argument. Next week, justices will hear Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal charges that arose from his “official acts” as president.
The court’s ruling in Fischer v. United States could also deal a blow to other Jan. 6 prosecutions, although it would not prevent the punishing of those who broke into the Capitol on the day Congress was due to certify Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
More than 1,200 of the rioters were arrested for their actions. Most were charged with assaulting the police officers who were on duty or with disorderly and disruptive conduct. Some were also charged with carrying dangerous or deadly weapons.
The FBI delved into the backgrounds and motives of those who went to the Capitol. On the basis of those investigations, about 330 of the rioters also were charged with seeking to obstruct an official proceeding.
One of those was Joseph Fischer, an off-duty Pennsylvania police officer, who said on social media that he expected the attack on the Capitol “might get violent” but that it was needed “to send a message that we the people hold the real power.”
When Fischer was arrested, the charges against him included obstruction, a felony charge that could send him to prison for several years. A federal judge rejected the obstruction charge in his case, but the U.S. Court of Appeals restored it in a 2-1 decision. The Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal.
Most of the justices describe themselves as “textualists” who decide cases on the basis of the words of the laws.
The Sarbanes-Oxley law was adopted after the collapse of the energy firm Enron in an accounting scandal that also took down the Arthur Andersen accounting firm. Congress wanted to make clear that shredding documents was prosecutable.
At issue was how to interpret two clauses in the law. It says it is a crime if someone “corruptly 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 otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.”
U.S. Solicitor Geneneral Elizabeth Prelogar said the prosecutions rely on a “straightforward application” of the law as written.
The justices are likely to hand down a ruling in late June.