The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice erred in charging hundreds of defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot with obstructing Congress.
The 6-3 decision could impact the cases of several Georgia defendants, including some whose appeals have been on hold while they waited for the court to rule.
In the case brought by former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fischer, the court ruled prosecutors improperly charged defendants with obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony carrying the potential of 20 years in prison.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the law — passed in 2002 in the wake of the Enron scandal — was intended to apply specifically to obstruction caused by the destruction of documents and evidence and not more broad actions, like the storming of the Capitol, which delayed for hours the certification of the presidential election as members of Congress were forced to evacuate.
“It would be peculiar to conclude that in closing the Enron gap, Congress created a catch-all provision that reaches beyond the scenarios that prompted the legislation,” Roberts wrote.
The decision had immediate impact on some cases involving Georgians charged in the riot.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
William McCall Calhoun, an attorney from Americus, was convicted in a bench trial last year on obstruction and four misdemeanor charges for his role in the riot. Calhoun was among the first rioters to enter the Capitol and paraded with the mob to the hallway outside of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Calhoun appealed the verdict while he serves his sentence in federal prison in Atlanta. On Friday, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a new sentencing hearing in light of the Supreme Court opinion and gave prosecutors until Monday to answer why Calhoun should not be immediately released.
Calhoun is scheduled to complete his sentence in August, but the decision could also impact his ability to work as an attorney once he is released. In November, the Supreme Court of Georgia suspended Calhoun’s law license because of his felony conviction, but if that verdict is overturned, he could request his license be reinstated.
Other Georgia defendants likely will see their sentences reduced or vacated. Lisa Marie Eisenhart, a nurse from Woodstock, received a 30-month prison sentence, and her son, Eric Munchel, was given a 57-month term based on felony convictions of obstruction and conspiracy to commit obstruction. Both have appealed their convictions.
In January, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered that Eisenhart could be released while she waited on her appeal, reasoning that if the Supreme Court ruled her obstruction charges were not valid, she would serve less than a year on the misdemeanor charges. Munchel remained in prison because his charges included carrying a Taser and a handful of zip-ties as he paraded through the Senate chamber, but his sentence is also likely to be reduced. Lamberth gave the parties five days following the Fischer decision to schedule a hearing on the matter.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
The opinion cut across ideological lines on the court. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the conservative majority in the ruling, while conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in a dissenting opinion.
Jon Lewis, a research fellow with George Washington University’s Center on Extremism, was not surprised by the decision of the majority.
“When you look at the use of the charge and the analysis used in this case, it is fair to say that the scope of this law may have been stretched further than was intended,” he said.
But he said that points to a weakness in federal law which could leave the country unprepared for another attack.
“There should be a broader response to the fact that there was an attack on the U.S. Capitol and we didn’t have a felony charge to use against every person who was involved in it,” he said. “We need to have some mechanism, some charge that does fit them.”
More generally, Lewis said he believes the decision itself has more rhetorical power with people who believe the Jan. 6 investigation is politically motivated.
“I don’t think it changes the landscape of the Jan. 6 prosecutions,” he said. “What’s more important is the message it sends.”
Lewis said he expects conspiracy theorists to seize on the decision to bolster their claims that people who took part in the riot are political prisoners.
“From now until the election, it just fans the flames of that,” he said. “It’s using the idea that it’s these patriots who have been wronged.”
The decision itself has a relatively narrow reach. According to the Justice Department, of the approximately 1,427 defendants arrested in the massive investigation, about 300 were charged with obstruction. Of those, about 52 were convicted solely on that charge, with the remainder being convicted on other charges, the department said in a release following the decision.
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