Amy Coney Barrett Bucks Conservative Justices on Jan. 6
Justice Amy Coney Barrett bucked her conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court in a major case involving a January 6 defendant.
The Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the federal obstruction statute used in many of the prosecutions related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack on Friday. Barrett, however, dissented.
"Section 1512(c)(2) is a very broad provision, and admittedly, events like January 6th were not its target. (Who could blame Congress for that failure of imagination?) But statutes often go further than the problem that inspired them, and under the rules of statutory interpretation, we stick to the text anyway," Barrett wrote. "The Court, abandoning that approach, does textual backflips to find some way—any way—to narrow the reach of subsection (c)(2). I respectfully dissent."
Barrett, a Trump appointee, was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both liberals. The bench's third liberal, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, sided with the majority, writing in a concurring opinion that she did so "because I agree with the majority that §1512(c)(2) does not reach 'all forms of obstructive conduct' and is, instead, 'limited by the preceding list of criminal violations' in §1512(c)(1)."
The January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol was taken up by the Supreme Court this year. On Friday, the justices upended hundreds of convictions against pro-Trump rioters, ruling that federal prosecutors went too far in bringing obstruction charges against those defendants.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett poses for an official portrait at the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court building on October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. Barrett penned the dissent in Fischer v. United States. Alex Wong/Getty Images
In April, the Court heard oral arguments in the case of Joseph Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer who has been indicted in connection with his role in the riot. Fischer is one of 330 people who were charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, a charge stemming from a law passed in the wake of the Enron financial scandal. More than 100 people have already been convicted and received prison sentences for an identical charge, which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
In his lawsuit, Fischer argued that the obstruction statute was not intended to cover the types of conduct that rioters engaged in that day but instead to cases of evidence tampering.
On Friday, the Supreme Court concluded that the obstruction statute was only intended to apply in limited circumstances where tampering with physical evidence is involved. The ruling sends the case back to the lower courts for further consideration on whether the Justice Department can still prosecute Fischer with this interpretation of the law.
"Although the Government's all-encompassing interpretation may be literally permissible, it defies the most plausible understanding of why (c)(1) and (c)(2) are conjoined, and it renders an unnerving amount of statutory text mere surplusage," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority indicated earlier this year that it was prepared to toss out Fischer's charge, signaling concern over how the Justice Department has wielded the charge. The bench's liberal justices, on the other hand, appeared to be in line with the Justice Department's position, noting that the language in the obstruction statute specifically uses the term "official proceeding," which is defined as including a congressional proceeding.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have faced calls to recuse themselves from Fischer v. United States, but neither has stepped aside. Critics argue that the two conservatives could be sympathetic to Fischer given their spouses' support for Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
Thomas's wife, Virginia, is a conservative activist who urged Trump's chief of staff to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Alito's wife, Martha-Ann, flew an upside-down flag—a symbol embraced by the "Stop the Steal" movement—days before Joe Biden's inauguration.
Friday's ruling is also likely to undermine the federal election interference case against Trump, who was indicted in connection with his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss, culminating in the Capitol riot.
Special counsel Jack Smith has argued that the obstruction charges against Trump are valid no matter the outcome of Fischer's case, but it's likely that Trump will try to have the charge thrown out in his case now that the Supreme Court has sided with Fischer.
Update 06/28/24, 11:22 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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