Supreme Court makes Trump obstruction lawsuits harder, with ruling narrowly defining law used against him and Jan. 6 rioters

The indictments and, in some cases, convictions of hundreds of people accused of participating in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, will face review or even dismissal because of a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 28, 2024. Among those charged under a broad interpretation of the obstruction law now narrowed by the high court: former President Donald Trump.

In its decision in Fischer v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a federal law prohibiting obstruction of an official proceeding could not apply to three defendants accused of participating in the U.S. Capitol riot. Although former President Donald Trump is not charged in that case, special counsel Jack Smith has separately accused him of violating the same law.

As a law professor who teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law and federal courts, I will explain what the courts' decision means for the January 6 defendants and for Smith's case against Trump.

Charges filed against Capitol rioters

According to their indictments, Joseph Fischer, Edward Lang and Garret Miller were present at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Prosecutors say the three men entered the Capitol building and assaulted police officers during the riot. One of the men, Lang, brandished a bat and a stolen police shield, and another, Miller, later called for the assassination of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on social media.

Federal prosecutors charged the three men with a variety of crimes, including assault on a federal officer, disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and obstructing a congressional proceeding. This latter charge is the one at issue in the Supreme Court's appeal.

Before trial, the defendants argued that the law prosecutors relied on to charge them with obstruction applied only to tampering with evidence, not violently disrupting a parliamentary proceeding. The district court agreed and dismissed the charge, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit reversed the decision and remanded the case to trial.

The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case, suspending the trial while it considered the dispute over the scope of the obstruction law.

The Supreme Court's decision could have implications for lawsuits against former President Donald Trump over his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File Defining a catch-all term

In a 6-3 opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court agreed with the defendants, holding that the law prohibits only tampering with evidence. It then sent the case back to the appeals court to decide whether the defendants violated the law under this narrower reading by trying to prevent Congress from receiving and certifying the state's actual electoral votes.

The court began with the text of the obstruction statute. The law criminalizes anyone who alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals any record, document, or other thing or who otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding. The government argued that the defendants otherwise obstructed the congressional process to certify the results of the 2020 election.

But the court rejected this argument, holding that the term otherwise obstruction refers only to obstruction which, such as the alteration, destruction, mutilation or concealment of a record, document or object, undermines the availability or integrity of evidence intended for use in an official proceeding. Catch-all laws aimed at obstructing an official proceeding must be read in conjunction with the list of actions that precede it, the court explained. Otherwise the list would be redundant.

The Court also recalled the historical context of the law. Congress, the Court explained, enacted this specific obstruction law in 2002 following the Enron accounting fraud scandal. Its goal was to fill a loophole in existing state obstruction laws, which at the time prohibited requiring a third party to destroy incriminating evidence, but not destroying that evidence yourself.

The government's reading of the law, the court explained, would take it far beyond that goal, prohibiting forms of obstruction that have nothing to do with evidence and that Congress never intended to criminalize.

What this means for the January 6 defendants and for Trump The Supreme Court, from left to right, front row: Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan; and from left to right in the back row: Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Alex Wong/Getty Images

The Supreme Court's decision does not end the case against the Fischer defendants, who will likely face trial on their assault and disorderly conduct charges.

But it could lead to dismissal of obstruction charges, or overturning of obstruction convictions, for other Jan. 6 defendants. According to an NPR database, federal prosecutors have charged at least 250 other defendants with obstruction of an official proceeding, and 128 have been convicted.

The move could also jeopardize special prosecutor Jack Smith's case against former President Donald Trump, whom he has accused of obstruction under the same law. If this case survives a separate appeal pending before the Supreme Court, the former president will likely seek to have the charge dismissed.

Trump could fail, however, because the obstruction charge against him is based in part on the allegation that he organized lists of electors to certify false election results to Congress. This could amount to undermining the integrity of the evidence used in the certification process.

And the obstruction charge isn't the only charge the former president faces, either. But the ruling could narrow the case and make it harder for the special counsel to present evidence to the jury about the violence that occurred on January 6. That violence alone can't be considered obstruction, according to the new ruling.

The Fischer case also shows how sometimes, especially in high-stakes cases, justices can use methods of legal reasoning that they are quick to criticize in other contexts. In their opinion, members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority cited the legislative history of the filibuster law, evidence that conservative jurists such as the late Justice Antonin Scalia have often dismissed as unreliable.

The Supreme Court's decision in the Fischer case could have a profound effect on the special counsels' historic prosecution of former President Trump.

But even if it does not, it nevertheless sheds important light on the inner workings of the courts and the power of the federal government to preserve the integrity of its proceedings.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-makes-prosecution-of-trump-on-obstruction-charge-more-difficult-with-ruling-to-narrowly-define-law-used-against-him-and-jan-6-rioters-232685 The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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