The Supreme Court issued a major ruling on Friday regarding a participant in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot who challenged his conviction for a federal “obstruction” crime. In a 6-3 decision, the high court held to a narrower interpretation of a federal statute that imposes criminal liability on anyone who corruptly alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object with the intent to impair its integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding.
The ruling reverses a lower court decision and returns the case to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for reassessment. The case involves Joseph Fischer, one of over 300 people charged by the Justice Department with obstruction of an official proceeding during the Capitol riot. Fischer’s lawyers argued that the federal statute should not apply, as it had only been used in evidence-tampering cases.
Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the government’s interpretation of the law was too broad, and the government stretched the law too far in this case. Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson emphasized that the court’s task was to determine what conduct is proscribed by the criminal statute invoked in the obstruction charge.
The dissenting justices argued that Congress, not the court, should determine the limits of a federal obstruction statute. The case will now go back to the lower courts to determine whether the obstruction charge against Fischer and other Jan. 6 defendants can proceed under the new narrower legal standard.
The Justice Department must now decide whether to drop the obstruction charge for defendants facing other Jan. 6-related criminal counts or wait for the courts to fully resolve the issue. This ruling has significant implications for the prosecution of individuals involved in the Capitol riot.
