The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday local time that prosecutors exceeded the scope of the law by prosecuting a part of the rioters who broke into the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to obstruct the certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election. The ruling has left hundreds of cases facing uncertainty.
According to media reports, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court by Joseph Fischer, a former police officer who supported former President Donald Trump, who broke into the Capitol Hill in Washington with hundreds of people on Jan. 6.
The Supreme Court's ruling was a victory for the former Pennsylvania State police officer Fischer. In November 2021, a grand jury charged Fischer with seven charges. He was accused of sending text messages advocating violence before the Capitol riot erupted, including one that reads: "If Trump doesn't take office, we should declare war." ”
Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his main opinion that the prosecution's interpretation of the law criminalized "a large number of ordinary acts that expose activists and lobbyists to decades in prison."
The government, he wrote, "must prove that the defendant has compromised the availability or integrity of records, documents, artifacts, or other items used in the formal proceedings, or attempted to do so."
Under the law, a person with unlawful intent to damage a document in an attempt to prevent it from being used in a formal proceeding or "otherwise obstructing, influencing or obstructing any formal proceeding, or attempting to do so", is punishable by 20 years' imprisonment.
Roberts: The word "otherwise" gives the prosecution too much freedom
The main opinion notes that the word "otherwise" gives prosecutors too much freedom to bring charges far beyond what Congress originally intended.
The Supreme Court ruled by a 6-3 vote of nine justices, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was nominated by incumbent President Joe Biden to join the conservatives; Trump's appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, wrote a dissenting opposition, signed by liberal Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Jackson, who agrees with the conservative justices, writes: "The peaceful transfer of power is a fundamental democratic norm, and those who seek to interfere with the process in this way inflict heavy damage on the country... But today's case has nothing to do with the immorality of those acts. ”
Barrett, for his part, said in a dissenting opinion that the January 6, 2021, session of Congress was a formal proceeding, and that "given this premise, it appears obvious that Fischer could be tried for 'obstructing, influencing or obstructing the formal process.'" She also accused the majority of justices of "making a U-turn in the text, seeking some way, any way" to limit the scope of the relevant subsections.
Fischer's case will now be returned to a lower court, which will decide whether Fischer's indictment is still valid under the narrower interpretation of "obstruction" of the formal process.
U.S. Attorney General Garland criticized the Supreme Court's ruling as weakening "an important federal statute" used by the Justice Department to prosecute the culprits of the Capitol riot, but he said the Supreme Court's ruling should have limited impact.
"The vast majority of the more than 1,400 defendants indicted for the illegal acts of Jan. 6 will not be affected by this ruling," Garland said. ”
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement that a total of 52 rioters were indicted and sentenced on charges of obstruction of a formal proceeding alone, and 27 of them are in prison. Some 249 others were prosecuted for obstruction of the formal process plus another felony or misdemeanor.
The case could also have significant implications for Trump, who faces four felony charges against Special Counsel Smith on his allegedly overturning the results of the 2020 election.
Last year, Special Counsel Smith filed four criminal charges against Trump, including charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruct official proceedings, and conspiracy to deprive Americans of their voting and counting rights.
But the case is put on hold until the Supreme Court rules on Trump's claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution, and the judge is now expected to rule on Monday.