![image](https://i0.wp.com/alancmoore.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/50827285187_878cc564e6_k-2-e1719589102613.jpg?w=801&ssl=1)
The Department of Justice ( DOJ) used an improperly broad interpretation of a federal statute to prosecute a former police officer who was convicted of being involved in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, according to the Supreme Court.
On Friday, the magistrates delivered the 6- 3 determination in Fischer v. United States, ruling Joseph Fischer should not have been charged with “obstruction of an established moving” under the 2002 Sarbanes- Oxley Act. In the more than three decades since the mob, the DOJ has used the act to prosecute more than 300 defendants with felonies, with the accused facing a sentence that could get them to 20 years.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that” to show a violation” of the statute under the Sarbanes- Oxley Act,” the Government may establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an established proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we previously explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so”.
Justice Roberts warned on Friday that the DOJ’s broad interpretation of the law, which would lock up protesters at the Capitol on January 6, “would prosecute a large expanse of mundane do, exposing protesters and activists to ages in jail.”
The situation has far-reaching effects beyond the countless defendants who have been charged in the wake of the riot, including those who now have premises to appeal the most frequently charged criminal. The Sarbanes-Oxley act serves as the basis for two of the four costs against former president Donald Trump that were filed with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigation into the Republican nominee. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, those accusations are likely to be dropped or invalid by the authorities.
]RELATED: This J6 Defendant Spent 3 Years In Jail For What The Supreme Court Might Say Is n’t A Crime ]
Justice Amy Coney Barrett disagreed, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined five of the six conservative judges in the majority choice with a cooperating mind.
” Notwithstanding the shocking circumstances involved in this case or the Government’s determination that they warrant prosecution”, Jackson wrote,” … I join in the Court’s opinion 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.'”
It’s highly unlikely that Congress intended for subsection ( c ) ( 2 ) to establish a first-of-its-kind general federal obstruction crime, Jackson said,” Given that Congress has never before passed a similarly broad obstruction law when others have long existed.”
Justice Barrett wrote the dissention, contending that the federal government had correctly applied the “obstruction” words to legal defendants charged with crimes related to the Capitol’s upheaval.
The 1512 ( c ) ( 2 ) provision for obstruction crimes, Barrett wrote, “is a very broad provision, and admittedly, events like January 6th were not its target. ( Who had responsible Congress for that loss of mind? )”.
” But rules generally go further than the issue that inspired them, and under the rules of legal view, we stick to the word anyway”, she added.
Julie Kelly, who has covered the defendants ‘ trials since the demonstration, wrote in a post on X that Barretts ‘ dissent “is imitating the words of DC judges who claimed the 4-hour Capitol disturbance was so unthinkable that Congress never imagined that such an event would occur, so 1512c2 applies.”