The US Supreme Court on Friday limited the scope of a law used against supporters of former President Donald Trump who participated in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, by quashing one count against one of them.
The decision could indirectly impact federal charges against Trump for unlawfully attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden, since that charge is among the charges against him.
But this procedure is also suspended pending the Supreme Court’s decision – in principle on Monday – on the criminal immunity he claims as a former president.
In this case, the debate concerned the application to the assault on the Capitol, that is to say the attempt to disrupt the certification by Congress of the results of the presidential vote, of the charge of obstruction of an official procedure.
The Court, by a majority of six to three — five conservatives and one progressive against one conservative and two progressives — considers that this qualification cannot apply to Joseph Fischer, a former police officer, for his actions on January 6, 2021.
To prove a violation of the statute used in this case, the prosecution must “establish that the defendant compromised the availability or integrity of records, documents, or objects intended for use in an official proceeding,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
Conversely, in her opinion of disagreement, conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett, joined by two progressive colleagues, criticizes the majority for engaging in “semantic contortions” to give the law a more restrictive interpretation than that intended, according to her, by the Congress.
The Minister of Justice Merrick Garland deplored in a press release this decision, which “limits an important federal law” used by his services to hold accountable the main perpetrators of January 6, 2021, “unprecedented attack against our institutional system”.
But it will “only have consequences on a small number of cases”, according to the ministry, specifying that of more than 1,400 people charged for their participation in the assault on the Capitol, less than 18% were prosecuted or found guilty of this charge.
Of those who were, around fifty were convicted on this charge alone and only 27 are currently serving a prison sentence, according to the same source.