SCOTUS Restricts Criminal Charge Of Interference With Official Proceeding Under Statute Used Against J6 Defendants
“To prove a violation of Section 1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we earlier explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so.”
In a big decision today, the Supreme Court, in a split that saw KBJ siding with the Roberts majority and ACB writing the dissent joined by Sotomayor and Kagan, rejected the use of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 against a J6 defendant, ruling the statute only applied to interference with records or evidence, not interference with an official proceeding. This has implications not only for other J6 defendants, but also the DC court charges against Trump.
From the Majority Opinion:
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 imposes criminal liability on anyone who corruptly “alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding.” 18 U. S. C. §1512(c)(1). The next subsection extends that prohibition to anyone who “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” §1512(c)(2). We consider whether this “otherwise” clause should be read in light of the limited reach of the specific provision that precedes it.
This case concerns the prosecution of petitioner Joseph Fischer for his conduct on January 6, 2021. That day, both Houses of Congress convened in a joint session to certify the votes in the 2020 Presidential election. While they did so, a crowd of supporters of then-President Donald Trump gathered outside the Capitol. As set forth in the criminal complaint against Fischer, some of the crowd eventually “forced entry” into the building, “breaking windows,” and “assaulting members of the U. S. Capitol Police.” App. 189. This breach of the Capitol caused Members of Congress to evacuate the Chambers and delayed the certification process. The complaint alleges that Fischer was one of those who invaded the building….
In Count Three, the only count now before us, the Government charged Fischer with violating 18 U. S. C. §1512(c)(2). Fischer moved to dismiss that count, arguing that the provision criminalizes only attempts to impair the availability or integrity of evidence. The District Court granted his motion in relevant part. It concluded that the scope of Section 1512(c)(2) is limited by subsection (c)(1) and therefore requires the defendant to “‘have taken some action with respect to a document, record, or other object.’” 2022 WL 782413, *4 (DC, Mar. 15, 2022) (quoting United States v. Miller, 589 F. Supp. 3d 60, 78 (DC 2022)).
***
To prove a violation of Section 1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we earlier explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so. See supra, at 9. The judgment of the D. C. Circuit is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. On remand, the D. C. Circuit may assess the sufficiency of Count Three of Fischer’s indictment in light of our interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2).
MORE TO FOLLOW
We have the #Fischer case from #SCOTUS. Majority agrees with defendant that the federal obstruction statute applied to hundreds of J6 defendants was not properly applied. Those defendants include Pres Trump. Hundreds of cases potentially impacted. Will Special Counsel Jack…
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Comments
Now how do all the defendants get their lives back and receive compensation for this malicious miscarriage of justice?
Bot with sovereign immunity.
“That’s the near thing. You don’t!”
Forget this, SCOTUS just restricted Chevron.
Forget this?
Is your a$$ in wrongly jail ?
Disgusting
Note the pattern here. Our “representatives” (and our unelected bureaucrats do the same thing) tyrannize us with a new and blatantly asinine “interpretation” of law, and then get to destroy our lives, fortunes, and health with it for three to six years before the court can strike down the tyranny and resume the status quo (assuming it does).
Even if you shorten the response time marvelously (as in the tuition forgiveness cases), a tyrant with juggling skills can always have at least one ball in the air at any given time.
Lower court judges are going to ignore this until forced
They don’t, and especially those that died in jail or committed suicide.
Super! Now set bail!
Looks like we really do have an ACB problem.
She is all over the place, but agreed to gut Chevron today. I’ll take that win. However, siding with shitlibs on this decision and the censorship decision are a kick in the gut.
And without KBJ’s vote the right way, Roberts likely would have sided with the left which would make a majority. KBJ saved us. She may not be a biologist, but it seems she’s not the worst justice on the court either.
She is a devil and her disguise has fallen off
The Court’s competition of Front Hole of The Week just ripped wide open..
Aspiring RBG replacement.
We certainly do. ACB is our golden domer problem, just as arrogant and entitled as their football team and fans are.
Me am concerned. Given her intellectually immature dissent (it reads like a student desperately trying to impress somebody), I don’t feel confident she is able to understand the constitutional principles underlying presidential immunity.
It always seemed that we would, as soon as she was exposed to the leftist hen party and started craving acceptance.
This wasn’t a hard one. There was already precedent ruling on this issue … ACB went way off on this one. I can accept an occasional sidestep but this was a layup … neither Kavanaugh nor ACB are like Alito or Thomas or the sorely missed Scalia … the next conservative pick must be a rock.
More uniparty rending of garments here as result of this decision as well ‘golly, we wuz scared, the ordinary Citizens entering ‘our’ buildings was traumatic’. Never forget Sen Graham whining that Capital Police ‘..have guns, use them!’ Nor forget that Speaker Pelosi is responsible for security and refused additional deployment of resources despite the potential crowd.
Yes especially the Senate that day proved that they are bunch of venal jerks who don’t deserve a decent retirement, let alone power over the rest of us.
It certainly violates fair notice, if that was meant to be slipped in.
How bad is ACB? She wrote the dissent in an opinion that is so counter to simple principles of law that even Jackson got it correct. ACB is already a problem, one that is likely to worsen as she ages.
Well, Trump thought she was great, even HUUUUGE! That’s why he nominated her.
Incurable.
Jack Smith was always a farce as a lawyer. This further cements how reduculous his no el legal theories are.
Described as a protégée of Justice Antonin Scalia,[11][12][13] Barrett supports textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation.[14][15][16] She is generally considered to be among the Court’s conservative bloc.
Quote from where? Is she still generally considered that?
Sounds like the brutality typical of the Babylon Bee.
A defiantly unrepentant Junior smears feces on himself YET AGAIN.
GTFO.
Wow JR.
How long before you bring up that ACB is a tranny selected by Trump, and ducked by Trump, so he could have her in a beauty pageant?
Sandra Day O’Conner
Is the left still harassing her outside her home?
Maybe we should just quietly join them.
She got some praise by the lefty media and that can be addictive
Women. What can you do?
Every politician should be bating their own breath.
before the elections might hurt trump as it will look orchestrated and remind the haters of freedom that they are actually the guilty ones and true patriots were just voicing their opinions and allowed into the peoples facilities
anyone who actually was destructive should be given the punishment
THE CORRECT PUNISHMENT
So, not everything is about Trump, and not all or even most problems would be solved if he gets back into office. He’s not so HUUUUGE!
Especially with Chevron now gone, the whole question of who is president is less important.
A truly insane observation.
lol, this Chevron decision changes nothing on its own. If the politicians in charge don’t care, then nothing really changes.
ok here is the CONFLICT WITH ACB:
Described as a protégée of Justice Antonin Scalia,[11][12][13] Barrett supports textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation.[14][15][16] She is generally considered to be among the Court’s conservative bloc.
VS
A Christian WorldView
So the first one is easy.. clerked for conservatives…..
BUT AGAIN
THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW in regards TO POLITICS
is a Socialists pov
B/C when you take the care and love of Jesus and then APPLY POLITICS TO IT
YOU GET SOCIALISM B/C OF THE Optics ( hence lies!) of Socialism
Private citizens caring for humans is great
Public policy (ACB) doing the same leads to the Government “knowing what is best”
hence the negative side of the
judeo christian ethics
Respectfully sir, you are wrong about your idea of the Christian Worldview of politics. for the most part you have 100% backwards.
But the thing about religion is that even believers don’t all agree about the specifics, and everybody takes home something different. That’s why you have a hundred “Christian” denominations in the first place.
I mean, if you need one big example to puncture this argument entirely, consider our current socialist Pope.
Based on the # of ‘Christian Charities’ facilitating much of the illegal alien population movement across our borders and the fact these ‘charities’ have operational budgets funded not by Private voluntary donors but by tax dollars….he seems to have a valid point.
If your religious beliefs inform you that X is a good thing then feel free to fund it yourself. Keep your hand out of everyone else’s pocket and for damn sure stop relying upon govt coercion (taxation) to fund it.
I hope your relatives recommend you for the show Intervention sooner than later.
She is Catholic, Scalia was Catholic, it was not trivial in the identity of either. Yet, they are really much different.
Biden’s Catholic too. Even the current Pope, although sometimes that’s hard to believe.
Is the Pope Catholic?
I’d be more concerned about what he goes out to the woods to do.
Does he sh*t in the woods?
Gracie Allen you ain’t.
She will also vote against President Trump and his suit
He. Chose. Poorly.
I don’t think so. She will ask Roberts how she should vote.
Roberts waits til everyone else has voted, then if it’s 4-4 he votes with the left to give them the win, otherwise he votes with the right because it doesn’t matter to show that his voting is balanced to conservative. (This hasn’t fooled anyone paying attention for years.) Are you saying we now have a 2-person bloc doing that, with Roberts as leader?
Improper charges, Improper prosecution, improper application of the law, improper actions of the justice department by an improper attorney general.
I predict, without joy, that the lawfare against these individuals will continue. Their releases will be delayed, new theories will be thrown against them, the prosecutor will have lots of “discretion” to keep them locked up.
And the people doing this to them should face life-changing hard time, but they won’t.
We really shouldn’t have women serving as judges.
Right. We really screwed up when we let them think that they should be anything but barefoot and pregnant. And cooks.
Based.
When will charges be brought against the J6 committee members?
Seems they “impaired the availability or integrity . . . of records, documents, objects . . .” necessary for review and confirmation of their findings in any future official proceeding by destroying them altogether.
They have congressional immunity.