In a landmark decision and significant victory for January 6 defendants, the Supreme Court has overturned the Department of Justice's use of the obstruction of an official proceeding charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). This ruling marks an unprecedented defeat for the Biden administration's Department of Justice.
The Supreme Court's decision invalidates the prosecutions of over 350 individuals who were charged under this statute for their participation in the January 6 Capitol events. Critics of the DOJ have long argued that the use of this charge constituted a misuse of the law, aimed at punishing those who protested the certification of the 2020 election ‘results’ and criminalizing political dissent.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, stated, “The Government’s theory would also criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists to decades in prison. Our usual approach in obstruction cases has been to ‘resist reading' particular sub-provisions ‘to create a coverall statute.' Nothing in the text or statutory history gives the Court a reason to depart from that practice today.” Roberts emphasized that the government's interpretation would grant prosecutors excessive discretion to impose severe penalties for actions that Congress intended to punish less harshly. He concluded that reading subsection (c)(2) in light of (c)(1) respects Congress's legislative role in defining crimes and setting appropriate penalties.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch joined Roberts in the majority opinion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
This ruling vacates and remands the previous decision from the lower courts, fundamentally altering the landscape of the DOJ's prosecution of over 350 individuals charged under this statute for their participation in the January 6 events.
