The ruling will make it more difficult to prosecute people involved in the U.S. Capitol security breach and some charges will be dropped.
The Supreme Court’s ruling that the federal government should not have used an accounting law to charge Joseph Fischer with obstruction of an official proceeding for briefly entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, will affect prosecutions involving other Jan. 6 defendants, lawyers told The Epoch Times.
Lawyers said those defendants who have not yet been convicted or whose appeals have not yet been exhausted may do better in court due to the new ruling than those who have already been sentenced under the obstruction law. The government said that all Jan. 6 defendants charged with obstruction were also charged with other offenses.
Some federal judges aren’t waiting until the ink is dry on the Supreme Court decision.
Federal Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington issued an order the day of the ruling directing prosecutors and Jan. 6 defendant Guy Wesley Reffitt to submit a proposed schedule “for further proceedings in light of Fischer v. United States” by July 5, according to the federal district court’s docket.
Mr. Reffitt of Wylie, Texas, was sentenced to 87 months in prison in August 2022 on five charges, including two counts of civil disorder and one count each of obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a firearm, and obstruction of justice.
The new Supreme Court decision is expected to make it more difficult for the federal government to prosecute those charged in connection with the Capitol security breach that took place as Congress was attempting to finalize the 2020 presidential election results. It is also likely to make it tougher for the federal government to continue with its Jan. 6-related obstruction-of-an-official-proceeding case against former President Donald Trump.
The nation’s highest court ruled on June 28 that a provision in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 18 U.S. Code Section 1512, which focuses on ensuring that documentation is made available for official proceedings, did not apply to the case.
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