In a ruling raising new doubts about more than 300 guilty verdicts for rioters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and maybe aiding former President Donald Trump’s legal defense, the Supreme Court on Friday narrowed the reach of an important federal criminal law.
In a 6-to-3 decision, with unusual lineups among the Justices, the majority made it more difficult for federal prosecutors to win cases claiming that an individual disrupted an official government proceeding. That law, passed in 2002 to deal with corporate fraud, requires proof that the individual had destroyed or tampered with documents or evidence that was needed in a trial, a government hearing or other official event.
Under that law, Justice Department prosecutors had won 330 guilty convictions against those who stormed the Capitol in an effort to block official validation in Congress of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election over Trump. Those convictions at least will have to be reexamined by lower courts, and some may be overturned.
Trump himself has been accused, for the January 6 uprising, of two criminal charges based on that same 2002 law. That case, which has not yet gone to trial, could be affected by the new decision limiting the law’s breadth
The ruling came in the case of a former small-town Pennsylvania policeman, Joseph Fischer, a Trump political supporter who came to Washington to attend Trump’s post-election rally and ultimately took part in the violence at the Capitol. He has yet to go on trial on the specific charge at issue in the new decision, plus other charges not involved in that decision.
In Fischer’s case, and in Trump’s, prosecutors have argued that the 2002 law against witness and evidence tampering could be violated even if an individual only disrupted or interrupted an official proceeding, whether or not the accused person had destroyed or modified any documents or records. The ruling Friday in Fischer’s case rejected that argument, concluding that there must be proof of some misconduct with written or documentary evidence.
Prosecutors in the case against Trump have argued that, even if the Court ruled as it did Friday, they can still win a conviction of Trump under that law because a part of Trump’s challenge to the result of the 2020 election was the creation of false documents on how Electoral College votes had been cast in that presidential election year.
It is unclear whether Fischer could try to make a similar argument when his case returns to federal court following the new decision.
Trump also faces other criminal charges, not at issue in the Friday ruling.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote the decision Friday, joined by fellow conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, plus the liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
The Court will meet again on Monday, when it is expected to issue the last decisions of the current term, maybe including the one in which Trump is claiming total immunity to any criminal prosecution
