Detailing the impact of the Supreme Court’s Fischer ruling on other Jan 6 defendants
This new piece from Courthouse New Service provides a detail account of how the Supreme Court’s recent Fischer ruling is impacting some January 6 riot prosecutions. The full headline provides the essentials: “DOJ begins dropping Capitol riot obstruction charges following SCOTUS decision: While only 2% of all Jan. 6 defendants are likely to be affected by the high court’s decision, that group includes certain members of the extremist Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.” Here are some more particulars from the article:
According to the Justice Department in its most recent monthly update, 1,178 individuals of the total 1,472 defendants charged in connection with the Capitol riot were not charged with obstruction of an official proceeding.
Of the remaining 259, 133 have already been sentenced — 76 of those were convicted on other felonies and 40 have already been released from prison. There are only 17 defendants of that 133 who were sentenced on just felony obstruction with certain misdemeanors and remain incarcerated.
The other 126 defendants are on pretrial release while awaiting sentencing or trials.
The Justice Department emphasized that there are zero cases where a defendant was only charged with obstruction of an official proceeding and every defendant faces some other felony or misdemeanor charges. In total, just 2% of Capitol riot defendants could potentially benefit from the Supreme Court’s decision.
I am not sure I follow the 2% math, since it seems that there are more than thirty Jan 6 defendants that ought to potentially benefit from Fischer in some way. That said, I do fear there with be defendants who should benefit from FIscher who, because of appeal waivers or other procedural barriers, will not be able to secure Fischer-based justice. And, more broadly, the data reported above suggests that the vast majority of Jan 6 defendants are not going to be impacted by the Fischer ruling.
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