Supreme Court Rules Prosecutors Overreached, Throws Out Obstruction Charges Used in Jan. 6 Cases
by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – The Supreme Court ruled that the Justice Department improperly charged a Jan. 6 protester with obstructing the Electoral College count stating the law was applied too broadly. This decision could benefit hundreds of other protesters charged under the same statute and potentially former President Donald Trump.
In a 6-3 decision, the conservative majority of the court ruled that a Pennsylvania man who entered the Capitol cannot be prosecuted under a financial record-keeping law intended to criminalize the destruction of evidence and obstruction of proceedings. The court also suggested that charging him under a 2002 Enron-era statute, which criminalizes impeding specific government proceedings, may have been improper.
Federal prosecutors argued that the 2002 law, enacted following the Enron accounting scandal and intended to target actions such as ordering someone to disrupt an investigation, applies to the Jan. 6 protesters. They claimed that the protesters’ actions at the Capitol, which caused lawmakers to seek shelter and disrupted the Electoral College count for hours, fell within the scope of this law.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6-3 majority, stated that Congress likely did not intend the obstruction provision to cover behavior beyond the specific wrongdoing that prompted the law. He emphasized that the government misread the law’s scope, asserting, “If Congress had wanted to authorize such penalties for any conduct that delays or influences a proceeding in any way, it would have said so.”
The ruling defied typical ideological lines. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sided with the majority, which included Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented, alongside Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The Justice Department has charged over 1,400 individuals for their roles in the Jan. 6 riot, with about 350 facing charges under the obstruction law.
Attorney General Merrick Garland stated, “The vast majority of the more than 1,400 defendants charged for their illegal actions on January 6 will not be affected by this decision.” He added, “For the cases affected by today’s decision, the Department will take appropriate steps to comply with the Court’s ruling.”
A major unresolved issue on Friday was whether the Supreme Court’s ruling would impact the election-interference case special counsel Jack Smith filed against former President Donald Trump.
Two of the four charges against Trump pertain to the same obstruction statute used in this case. Special counsel Jack Smith maintained in an April court filing that these charges would withstand the Supreme Court’s decision, but Trump’s legal team disagrees.
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