WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s ruling Friday in favor of a Jan. 6 defendant charged with obstructing an official proceeding quickly sparked activity to revisit that charge in other Capitol rioter cases, but it is unlikely to derail former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference case.
Justice Department officials and lawyers for the Jan. 6 defendants said the court’s 6-3 decision in the case involving former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fischer would have no immediate effect on most of the more than 1,000 convictions obtained by prosecutors.
The court’s decision is likely to have the greatest impact on the 52 rioters who were convicted and sentenced for obstruction and no other offenses. There are currently 27 defendants serving prison time solely for the obstruction crime.
“There are no instances in which the Department has charged a Jan. 6 defendant solely for the offense at issue in Fischer’s case,” Attorney General Merrick Garland noted in a statement Friday.
All of the defendants charged with obstruction faced other charges; the 52 people who were charged only with felony obstruction were also charged with misdemeanor crimes related to efforts to disrupt Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
Garland added that while he was “disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s decision, the Justice Department “will continue to use every tool available to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on our democracy.”
One of the Jan. 6 defendants who isn’t likely to see much impact from Friday’s ruling is Trump, whose election interference case involves an obstruction charge.
Andrew Weissmann, who served as a senior prosecutor in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, said on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” that he did not expect it to affect the affair.
“I don’t think this will have any effect on Trump’s January 6 indictment,” Weissmann said.
Sara R. Fitzpatrick, a lawyer who has followed the Fischer case, agreed that the ruling “pretty clearly” has no impact on special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump, which is on hold until the Supreme Court rules Monday on Trump’s request for presidential immunity.
“The ruling essentially limits Section 1512(c)(2) to any conduct that in any way falsifies or alters evidence or any other document or object used in an official proceeding,” Fitzpatrick said. “The law would still apply to people accused of doing anything to any document involved in this certification, and one of the things President Trump is accused of is working to create fake certificates of election and have them used instead of real election certificates. »
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case.
Speaking at a campaign rally on Friday, Trump welcomed the court’s decision.
“They’ve been waiting for this decision for a long time. They’ve been waiting for a long time, and this was a great response. This was a great thing for people who have been treated so horribly,” Trump told supporters in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Cases for the other Jan. 6 defendants began to be filed Friday. Robert Turner, who was convicted of obstruction and a series of charges including two other felonies — civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or obstructing officers — after a jury trial this month, asked that a judge file a motion for acquittal because of the Fischer decision.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Friday stayed a trial scheduled for July 22 after prosecutors filed a joint motion with defendant William Pope on Jan. 6, seeking to delay the case after the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Both parties are evaluating the decision, which has implications for the charges, presentation of evidence, and jury instructions at trial in this case,” the joint filing said.
U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich took a proactive approach Friday by asking prosecutors and defense attorneys in three cases involving defendants convicted and sentenced Jan. 6 to propose a timetable for further proceedings on the impact of the decision, noting that the defendants would have resentencing hearings. Those defendants were Guy Reffitt – the first defendant on January 6 to go to trial – who was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison in August 2022; Ronald Sandlin, who filmed himself assaulting officers and breaking into the Senate chamber and was sentenced to five years in federal prison in December 2022; and Jacob Travis Clark, sentenced to 33 months of incarceration in October 2023.
Friedrich also suggested she would likely dismiss the obstruction charge against Zachary Alam, charged Jan. 6, who used his helmet to smash windows overlooking the House Speaker’s Lobby just before rioter Ashli Babbitt be shot. Alam was due to be sentenced next month after being found guilty of several charges last year. Friedrich also asked both parties to submit documents on the impact of the Fischer decision on Alam’s sentencing guidelines.
Supporters of the Jan. 6 defendants and the lawyers who represented them in court reacted positively to the Supreme Court’s decision, although they acknowledged that it was complex and its ultimate impact had yet to be determined.
“Open the prison doors!” joked a lawyer who represented the January 6 defendants, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Bill Shipley, a former federal prosecutor who represented dozens of defendants in the Capitol riots, said the fallout from the Fischer decision will be complicated.
“It won’t necessarily resolve cases in the way some seem to hope,” he said.
“We have never experienced a situation like this,” he said. “I have never heard of a previous situation where hundreds of people were charged with the same crime for the same facts, only to have the Supreme Court say that this decision was misapplied, and that all these cases should be re-examined at the same time. In this sense, the way in which this plays out is far from obvious. »
Shipley said there would currently be many defendants behind bars who would be affected by the decision and would seek to be released on bail until all implications could be resolved. But he also said some defendants face risks in seeking relief.
“There will be cases in which the defendant pleaded guilty to only one count and the government dismissed all other counts. Well, the government can top up all these other accounts,” Shipley said. “The government has a 99.9% conviction rate, what do they have to fear? They have nothing to fear if they go back, reload the case and increase the charges. So there’s a real decision to be made by some of these defendants whether it’s worth trying to get rid of their crimes.”
On the other side of the issue, Justice Department officials say that while the Supreme Court’s decision will certainly have an impact, it will not upend their work or their approach to prosecuting cases.
“This is not the death knell for our efforts as some are claiming,” a law enforcement official told NBC News.
News Source : www.nbcnews.com
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