Supreme Court ruling reflects challenges to Jan. 6 prosecutions

The Supreme Court’s ruling Friday that prosecutors abused the obstruction of justice law in charging hundreds of rioters who attacked the Capitol is the latest example of the ongoing challenges facing the Justice Department as it navigates the fallout from Jan. 6, 2021.

Overall, the department has been successful over the past three years in cracking down on members of the pro-Trump mob who tried to disrupt the certification of President Biden’s victory on January 6, and in securing seditious conspiracy convictions against members of two far-right groups that played a significant role in fueling the violence that day, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

But with no established legal plan to address an assault on the foundations of democracy, prosecutors have sometimes gotten creative with the law. And that has left them vulnerable to criticism from the courts over how they have handled criminal cases, both against the rioters and former President Donald J. Trump, and contributed to a long series of challenges and delays.

The court’s new ruling on the obstruction law will hardly limit the Justice Department’s ability to pursue the rioters, but it will constrain prosecutors by limiting the use of a key tool they rely on to hold the most disruptive members of the crowd accountable.

Within weeks of the Capitol being breached, Michael Sherwin, then the top federal prosecutor in Washington, vowed to campaign “shocked and stunned” against the rioters who had attacked the building.

While Mr. Sherwin said sedition charges could be brought against some of the defendants at some point, his prosecutors ultimately relied much more heavily on the obstruction law to go after those they suspected of committing the primary crime that day: obstructing the certification of the election, which took place during a joint session of Congress.

Initially intended to protect against corporate crimes, the obstruction law was never easily suited to address the chaos that erupted at the Capitol. And almost from the beginning, defense attorneys complained that the government had expanded the statute far beyond its meaning. They accused prosecutors of using it mainly because it carried a harsh maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

The Supreme Court largely agreed, limiting the scope of the law and holding that it could only be used in cases closer to its original intent, such as when documents had been tampered with or when other forms of evidence had been damaged or compromised.

With their ruling, the justices effectively validated the argument that the Justice Department had taken advantage of the broadness and vagueness of the statute and wrongly twisted it to fit the circumstances of the January 6 events.

“The court has affirmed the common sense that a citizen only obstructs justice by obscuring evidence,” said Nicholas Smith, an attorney who was part of the early fight against the Justice Department’s use of the law. “It once again rejects attempts by clever prosecutors to use ambiguous language.”

Many of the charges the January 6 suspects faced were quite simple. Those who attacked police were charged with assault. Those who broke windows were charged with destroying government property.

But from the beginning, the obstruction law was used by prosecutors to characterize an event that was harder to pin down: the ways in which rioters disrupted the election certification.

Sometimes, prosecutors have used the law against people who’ve made it to the Senate floor, arguing that they played a direct role in chasing lawmakers away from their duties. Other times, it’s been enough for defendants to show some understanding — via text messages or Facebook posts, for example — that their actions were intended to disrupt the certification process.

Under the court’s new ruling, however, prosecutors will likely find it difficult to use the obstruction charge in future riot cases — unless, of course, they can prove that suspects desecrated or tampered with evidence during their time at the Capitol.

Prosecutors can use another law as a standard charge for those who disrupted the democratic process that day: 18 USC 231, which makes it a crime to obstruct or obstruct police officers during a civil disorder.

The most important practical effect of the Supreme Court ruling, lawyers who handle the cases say, is that it will leave the Justice Department tasked with charging more than 100 people who have already been punished under the now-invalid interpretation of the obstruction law.

Some federal judges hearing the cases have already made adjustments. They have indicated they are willing to increase the sentences suspects receive for crimes other than obstruction to offset any losses in prison.

Even as prosecutors have devoted enormous time and energy to what are now more than 1,400 January 6-related cases, the attack on the Capitol has shifted to the center of this year’s presidential race as both Mr. Trump and President Biden have concentrated on the sexual assault, albeit for very different reasons and from very different points of view.

In addition, both candidates have made an issue of the charges against Trump, ensuring that the federal charges against him in Washington related to his efforts to stay in power will be front and center as voters head to the polls.

But even though two of the four charges in Trump’s election trial are based on the obstruction act, the charges could emerge largely unscathed from the Supreme Court ruling.

That’s because prosecutors have effectively accused him of tampering with records in his scheme to create false lists of electors claiming he won in states that were actually won by Mr. Biden. That use of the obstruction charge appears closer to the standard set by the Supreme Court.

The justices will have a much bigger impact on Trump’s case when they decide next week whether he is immune from election interference charges because they stem from actions he took as president. That decision will be crucial in determining whether a jury will hear evidence that Trump tried to undermine the last election before voters consider returning him to power in the next election.