The Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Justice (DOJ) used an inappropriately broad interpretation of a federal statute to prosecute a former police officer who was charged because of his involvement in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
On Friday, the justices delivered the 6-3 decision in Fischer v. United States, ruling Joseph Fischer should not have been charged with “obstruction of an official proceeding” under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The statute has been used by the DOJ to charge more than 300 defendants with felonies in the more than three years since the riot, with the defendants facing a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that “to prove a violation” of the statute under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, “the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we earlier explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so.”
Justice Roberts warned on Friday that the DOJ’s broad interpretation of the law to lock up demonstrators present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 “would criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists alike to decades in prison.”
The case has far-reaching consequences that go well beyond the hundreds of defendants who’ve been prosecuted in the aftermath of Jan. 6 — who now have grounds to appeal the most commonly charged felony from the riot. Two out of four charges against
