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 ruled that the law, enacted in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act following the Enron accounting scandal, The statute was intended to apply only to limited circumstances, including forms of evidence tampering, and not to the broader range of circumstances asserted by the prosecution.
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.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that he was disappointed by the decision because it affects the Department of Justice’s January 6th lawsuit, but stressed that the majority of cases would not be affected.
He added that the ruling “limits important federal statutes that the Department of Justice has sought to apply to ensure that those most responsible for this attack receive appropriate punishment.”
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.
He added that the Justice Department’s interpretation “criminalizes a wide range of mundane conduct and exposes activists and lobbyists to decades of prison time.”
To prove a violation, prosecutors must show that a defendant “impaired the availability or integrity of a record, document, item or other object for use in a formal proceeding,” Roberts wrote.
The majority opinion was joined by four other conservatives and one liberal, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and was joined by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett in dissent.
Jackson wrote a separate opinion arguing that Fisher’s conduct could still be covered by a narrower interpretation of the law.
“Certain records, documents, or items were clearly used, including those related to the electoral votes themselves,” during the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to certify the election results, she added.
Barrett wrote that because no one disputes that the joint hearing was a formal proceeding, the question of whether Fisher should be indicted “appears clear.”
She added that most people “have no faith that Congress can be true when it enacts broad laws covering a wide range of conduct. ” She wrote that the Supreme Court “failed to respect the authority of the political branch” in ruling against the prosecutors.
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 the Fisher ruling, but only 52 cases have the sole felony in that ruling, and only 27 of those defendants are serving prison time. The most recent, Jan. 6 defendant Benjamin Martin, was convicted Wednesday of obstructing official business, though he also has been convicted of a felony breach of peace charge and a misdemeanor.
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.
