Highlights of the Supreme Court Ruling on Obstruction Charge in Jan. 6 Case (2024)

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Rioters who made it all way to the floor of the Senate, say, were often charged with obstruction. So, too, were rioters who showed some understanding — through text messages or Facebook posts — that their actions were intended to disrupt the certification proceeding.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had foreshadowed her skepticism during the oral arguments, saying that the court should not lose sight of “the backdrop of a real-world context” that Congress wrote the law after the document destruction in the Enron scandal. “There was nothing as far as I can tell in the enactment history as it was recorded that suggests that Congress was thinking about obstruction more generally,” she said.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett had not shown her hand so clearly during the arguments. At one point, however, she did suggest that one could be comfortable embracing the government’s broader reading of the statute by saying that it might be unconstitutional under the First Amendment if prosecutors tried to apply it too aggressively. (Her dissenting opinion did not get into that possibility as a potential limiting factor.)

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The Justice Department reached for this statute in part because it was written somewhat vaguely and appeared to cover almost any kind of obstruction of an official proceeding — in this case, the election certification that was taking place at the Capitol. But in its ruling, the Supreme Court decided that move was an overreach.

Thomas and Alito took part in the case despite calls for their recusal.

Virginia Thomas, known as Ginny, helped shape the effort to overturn the 2020 election. “Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History,” Ms. Thomas wrote in a text message to Mark Meadows, President Donald J. Trump’s chief of staff, during the fraught weeks between the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack.

Justice Thomas has not given a public explanation for remaining on the case, and he has taken part in other cases arising from the election and the 2021 attack. But he recused himself in October from a case concerning John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had advised Mr. Trump. Justice Thomas, for whom Mr. Eastman had served as a law clerk, gave no reasons for his decision to disqualify himself from that case.

Justice Alito has been more forthcoming. He explained why he would not recuse from the case in a letter to Democratic lawmakers in May after The New York Times reported that flags that have been used to support the “Stop the Steal” movement had been displayed at his homes in Virginia and New Jersey.

The justice said his wife, Martha-Ann, was responsible. “My wife is fond of flying flags,” he wrote. “I am not. She was solely responsible for having flagpoles put up at our residence and our vacation home and has flown a wide variety of flags over the years.”

The court recently adopted a code of conduct for the justices. It allows individual justices to make their own decisions about recusal.

One provision of the code says that “a justice is presumed impartial and has an obligation to sit unless disqualified.”

A second provision says that “a justice should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circ*mstances would doubt that the justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.”

The flags displayed at his properties, Justice Alito wrote, did not require him to recuse from the case. “A reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases,” he wrote, “would conclude this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal.”

Indeed, he wrote, he had an obligation to sit and hear the case.

What does the law at issue in the case actually say?

At least part of what it meant to accomplish was to address a gap in the federal criminal code at the time: It was a crime to persuade others to destroy records relevant to an investigation or official proceeding but not to do so oneself.

The law meant to close that gap. It did, in a two-part provision, Section 1512(c) of the federal criminal code:

(c) Whoever corruptly —

(1) 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

or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

The first part focuses on evidence, making it a felony to tamper with it to affect an official proceeding. The second part makes it a crime “otherwise” to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding.

The heart of this case is the pivot from the first part to the second part. The ordinary meaning of “otherwise,” prosecutors say, is “in a different manner.” That means, they say, that the obstruction of official proceedings need not involve the destruction of evidence — in their view, making the second part a catchall for any kind of corrupt interference with an official proceeding.

The lawyers for Joseph W. Fischer, who was accused of breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and of assaulting police officers, countered that the first part must inform and limit the second one — meaning that the obstruction of official proceedings must be linked to the destruction of evidence. They would read “otherwise” as “similarly.”

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Garland adds that “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” but vows to “take appropriate steps to comply with the court’s ruling.”

Some federal judges in Washington who are handling the Jan. 6 cases have already signaled that they are willing to increase the sentences defendants receive on crimes other than the obstruction count in order to make up for any loss in prison time. Recall that the obstruction charge carries a hefty maximum penalty of 20 years.

Trump has been seeking to rewrite the history of Jan. 6 for years — calling it a lovefest, among other things — and has said he’d likely pardon some of those arrested. This will give him a new talking point.

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The court has said that the law can be applied only to cases that concern some sort of evidence impairment, like tampering with documents. Federal prosecutors have accused Trump of tampering with documents through his plot to create false slates of electors claiming he won in states that President Biden actually won.

The court’s ruling is likely to have more of an effect on the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol than on Trump himself.

Nearly 1,430 people have been charged in the Jan. 6 attack.

As of this month, nearly 1,430 people had been charged in connection with the attack, according to the Justice Department. Among the most common charges brought against them are two misdemeanors: illegal parading inside the Capitol and entering and remaining in a restricted federal area, a type of trespassing.

About 350 rioters have been accused of violating the obstruction statute at issue in the Supreme Court ruling, and more than 500 people have been charged with assaulting police officers. Many rioters have been charged with multiple crimes, the most serious of which so far has been seditious conspiracy.

More than 1,000 defendants have already pleaded guilty; about 260 of them have done so to felony charges. Prosecutors have won the vast majority of the cases that have gone to trial: About 170 defendants have been convicted at trial and only two have been fully acquitted.

Nearly 900 people have been sentenced so far, and more than 540 have received at least some time in prison. The stiffest penalties have been handed down to the former leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, far-right extremist groups that played central roles in the Capitol attack.

Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, was sentenced to 22 years in prison, and Stewart Rhodes, who once led the Oath Keepers, was given an 18-year term.

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Before the ruling, prosecutors and some judges adjusted their approach to the charge in Jan. 6 cases.

But even before the court heard arguments in April, judges and prosecutors working on Capitol riot cases quietly started to adjust. For one thing, there are currently no defendants facing only the obstruction charge, according to the Justice Department. And ahead of the ruling, some judges signaled they would increase the sentences stemming from other charges if the obstruction count — which carries a hefty maximum penalty of 20 years in prison — was not available to them.

In February, for example, Judge Royce C. Lamberth denied an early release to an Iowa man, Leo Kelly, who was sentenced to 30 months in prison on the obstruction count and six other misdemeanors.

Judge Lamberth’s reason for not setting Mr. Kelly free?

Even if the Supreme Court ruled he was not permitted to sentence Mr. Kelly for obstruction, Judge Lamberth said he could increase the defendant’s total time in prison by imposing consecutive, not concurrent, terms on the misdemeanor charges.

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Here’s the latest on the decision.

Here’s what to know:

• Constraining prosecutors: The decision removes an important tool from prosecutors going after those who stormed the Capitol. Some 1,430 people have been charged in Jan. 6 cases, and of those, about 350 of the defendants faced this obstruction charge. Prosecutors had reserved it for the most serious cases in their effort to hold accountable people who they believed disrupted the peaceful transfer of presidential power.

• Standing their ground: Rejecting calls for their disqualification, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. participated in the case and sided with the defendant, Joseph W. Fischer. Experts in legal ethics have said that the activities of the justices’ wives raised serious questions about their impartiality.

• The charge itself: At issue was part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was enacted after the collapse of the energy giant Enron and contains a broad catchall provision that makes it a crime to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding. Mr. Fischer faced six other charges. Read more about what the law says.

• The Trump connection: Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal election interference case against the former president, has said Mr. Trump’s conduct could be considered a crime under even a narrow reading of the law. The former president is accused of tampering with documents through his plot to create false slates of electors claiming he won in states actually carried by President Biden. He also faces two other 2020 election charges unrelated to the law.

• The case involves a former police officer: Mr. Fischer sent text messages to his then-boss, the police chief of North Cornwall Township, Pa., about his plans for Jan. 6, according to the government. In one message, he wrote that “they should storm the capital and drag all the democrates into the street and have a mob trial.” Mr. Fischer’s lawyers have said that he attended the rally on the Ellipse but was not part of the initial assault. “When the crowd breached the Capitol, Mr. Fischer was in Maryland, not Washington, D.C.,” his lawyers wrote in their brief. “He returned after Congress had recessed.”

The Supreme Court says prosecutors overstepped with a Jan. 6 charge.

It could also have an effect on part of the federal case against former President Donald J. Trump accusing him of plotting to overturn his 2020 loss at the polls. But the precise impact on those cases will not become clear until trial courts review them in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Prosecutors had argued that the law applied to efforts to obstruct an “official proceeding” — the joint session of Congress that took place on Jan. 6, 2021, to certify the Electoral College results.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, read the law narrowly, saying it applied only when the defendant’s actions impaired the integrity of physical evidence.

Lower courts will now apply that strict standard, and it may lead them to dismiss charges against some defendants, although most of those charged or convicted under the obstruction law also face other charges.

The vote was 6 to 3, but it featured unusual alliances. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, voted with the majority and filed a concurring opinion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, wrote the dissent.

None of the opinions in the case discussed the charges against Mr. Trump, which rely only in part on the obstruction law.

Justice Jackson said the Jan. 6 attack was an assault on democracy. But that was not, she wrote, the question before the court.

“On Jan. 6, 2021, an angry mob stormed the United States Capitol seeking to prevent Congress from fulfilling its constitutional duty to certify the electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election,” she wrote. “The peaceful transfer of power is a fundamental democratic norm, and those who attempted to disrupt it in this way inflicted a deep wound on this nation.”

“But today’s case is not about the immorality of those acts,” she wrote. “Instead, the question before this court is far narrower: What is the scope of the particular crime Congress has outlined?”

A broad reading of the law, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “would criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists alike to decades in prison.”

Federal prosecutors have downplayed the significance of the obstruction charge, saying it was an important but not essential part of their overall strategy to prosecute the 1,427 people charged thus far in the attack on the Capitol. Of that number, 350 were charged under the section of the law challenged in the case, according to the Justice Department.

The biggest unknown is the fate of the 52 people who have been convicted exclusively under the law, with no other charge — 27 of whom are currently serving sentences in federal prison.

It is almost certain that those behind bars will immediately petition the court for their release. But investigators in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington have continued to accumulate a vast trove of evidence, much of it in the form of new electronic communications from people who have already stood trial.

That additional evidence might implicate some of the Jan. 6 defendants on other charges, which could lead to new trials, according to law enforcement officials.

The defendant in the case before the justices, Joseph W. Fischer, for instance, faced six other charges.

Justice Jackson stressed that reading the law narrowly did not necessarily mean that Mr. Fischer would prevail.

“It might well be that Fischer’s conduct, as alleged here, involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the Jan. 6 proceeding,” she wrote. That question, she wrote, is for lower courts to decide.

The effect of the ruling in Mr. Fischer’s favor on Mr. Trump’s case could also be limited. Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought the federal election interference charges against the former president, has said Mr. Trump’s conduct could be considered a crime under even a narrow reading of the obstruction law. Mr. Smith used the law in connection with Mr. Trump’s effort to create slates of electors pledged to vote for him from states won by President Biden.

A brief passage in the majority opinion may lend support to that view. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that it is possible to violate the obstruction law “by creating false evidence — rather than altering incriminating evidence.”

That statement might well encompass Mr. Trump’s efforts to create slates of fake electors.

In any event, the former president faces two other charges unrelated to the law, part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

In a separate case, the justices appear poised to rule on Monday on whether Mr. Trump is immune from prosecution for actions he took as president. The court’s ruling could render moot questions about whether the 2002 law covers his conduct.

The Supreme Court has said that the purpose of the obstruction law, prompted by accounting fraud and the destruction of documents, was “to safeguard investors in public companies and restore trust in the financial markets following the collapse of Enron Corporation.”

The question for the justices in the case, Fischer v. United States, No. 23-5572, was whether the law could be used to prosecute Mr. Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer.

According to the government, Mr. Fischer sent text messages to his boss, the police chief of North Cornwall Township, Pa., about his plans for Jan. 6. “It might get violent,” he said in one. In another, he wrote that “they should storm the capital and drag all the democrates into the street and have a mob trial.”

Prosecutors say that videos showed Mr. Fischer yelling “Charge!” before pushing through the crowd and entering the Capitol around 3:24 p.m. on Jan. 6. He used a vulgar term to berate police officers, prosecutors said, and crashed into a line of them. He was, the government’s brief said, “forcibly removed about four minutes after entering.”

Mr. Fischer’s lawyers, by contrast, stressed that he had attended the rally on the Ellipse but was not part of the initial assault.

“When the crowd breached the Capitol, Mr. Fischer was in Maryland, not Washington, D.C.,” his lawyers wrote in their brief. “He returned after Congress had recessed.”

“His earlier Facebook posts about violence, when read in context, refer to his belief that antifa planned to disrupt the rally,” they continued. He had yelled “Charge!” in “obvious jest,” they added.

In disrupting the certification of Mr. Biden’s electoral victory, prosecutors said, Mr. Fischer had obstructed an official proceeding in violation of the 2002 law, which was principally concerned with the destruction of evidence.

At least part of what the law meant to accomplish was to address a gap in the federal criminal code: It had been a crime to persuade others to destroy records relevant to an investigation or official proceeding but not to do so oneself. The law sought to close that gap through a two-part provision. The first part made it a crime to corruptly alter, destroy or conceal evidence to frustrate official proceedings. The second part, at issue in Mr. Fischer’s case, makes it a crime “otherwise” to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding.

The heart of the case is at the pivot from the first part to the second. The ordinary meaning of “otherwise,” prosecutors said, is “in a different manner.” That means, they said, that the obstruction of official proceedings need not involve the destruction of evidence. The second part, they say, is a broad catchall.

Mr. Fischer’s lawyers countered that the first part must inform and limit the second one — meaning that the obstruction of official proceedings must be linked to the destruction of evidence. They would read “otherwise” as “similarly.”

Justice Jackson largely agreed. “There is no indication whatsoever that Congress intended to create a sweeping, all-purpose obstruction statute,” she wrote.

In dissent, Justice Barrett, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, wrote that “Congress meant what it said.”

Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.