WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a former police officer seeking to dismiss an obstruction charge for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol.
The justices voted 6-3. A non-ideological standpoint handed victory to Joseph Fisher, one of hundreds of defendants, including former President Donald Trump, charged with disrupting an official process in the Jan. 6 trial over efforts to block Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
The court concluded that the statute, enacted in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act following the Enron accounting scandal, was intended to apply only to limited circumstances, including tampering with physical evidence.
The court sent the case back to a lower court for further review of whether the Department of Justice can prosecute Fisher based on its new interpretation of the law.
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the government’s view of the law’s scope was “contrary to any reasonable understanding” of the statute at issue, 18 U.S.C. § 1512, which provides for a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
To prove a violation, prosecutors must prove that a defendant “impaired the availability or integrity of records, documents, items or … other things intended for use in a formal proceeding,” he added.
In addition to Justice Roberts, four conservatives and one liberal (Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson) joined the majority opinion. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the dissenting opinion along with two other liberal justices.
The ruling may not affect Trump’s case: Prosecutors said that even if Fisher prevailed, Trump’s conduct would still be protected by a narrower interpretation of the law.
Fisher faces seven criminal counts, only one of which was the focus of the Supreme Court case, even though the obstruction charge was ultimately dismissed., Other charges remain, including assaulting a police officer and entering a restricted building.
The Supreme Court, which is dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority, has historically been skeptical of prosecutors’ broad claims to broad criminal law.
Trump faces four charges in the election interference case, including obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
In a separate case, the Supreme Court is considering President Trump’s immunity claim in the election interference case, which will also affect whether all counts are sustained before trial.
According to prosecutors, Fischer joined the crowd that broke into the Capitol from the east side on Jan. 6, 2021. He repeatedly yelled “Charge!” before advancing toward police lines and yelling “Fuck you!” the government said.
He and other rioters then fell to the ground, and after other rioters picked him up, he tried to identify himself to officers guarding the Capitol as a police officer, videos played as evidence in other trials of the Jan. 6 attack showed.
Fisher was previously a police officer in North Cornwall Township, Pennsylvania (fellow officer Joseph Fisher was also sentenced to 20 months in prison on January 6 for his role in the crime).
Of the more than 1,400 cases from Jan. 6, there are 247 cases that could be affected by Fisher, but only 52 cases in which Fisher is the only felony, and of those, only 27 defendants are serving time in prison. Most recently, Jan. 6 defendant Benjamin Martin was convicted Wednesday of obstructing official business, though he also has been convicted of felony disturbance of the peace charges and misdemeanor assault charges.
Recently, justices have taken the pending Fisher case into account when deciding sentences, and have publicly stated that if a defendant had been convicted of another felony, such as assaulting a police officer, they would have imposed the same sentence regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher.
