WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's ruling Friday in favor of a Jan. 6 defendant charged with obstruction of an official proceeding quickly triggered activity to revisit that charge in other Capitol rioter cases, but it's unlikely to derail former President Donald Trump's federal election interference case.
Justice Department officials and attorneys for Jan. 6 defendants said the court's 6-3 ruling in the case involving former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fischer would not have an immediate effect on most of the 1,000-plus convictions secured by prosecutors.
The court's decision is poised to have the biggest impact on the 52 rioters who were convicted and sentenced on an obstruction charge and no other felony offense. There are currently 27 defendants serving a prison sentence solely on a felony obstruction charge.
"There are no cases in which the Department charged a January 6 defendant only with the offense at issue in Fischer," Attorney General Merrick Garland noted in a statement on Friday.
All defendants charged with obstruction faced other charges; the 52 who faced only the obstruction felony charge also faced misdemeanor charges in connection with efforts to disrupt congressional certification of President Joe Biden's electoral victory.
Garland went on to say that while he was "disappointed" with the Supreme Court's decision, the Justice Department "will continue to use all available tools to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on our democracy."
One Jan. 6 defendant unlikely to see much impact from Friday's decision is Trump, whose election interference case involves an obstruction charge.
Andrew Weissmann, who served as a lead prosecutor in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, said on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" that he didn’t expect it would affect the case at all.
"I don’t think it will have any effect whatsoever in the Trump Jan. 6 indictment," Weissmann said.
Sara R. Fitzpatrick, an attorney who has been tracking the Fischer case, agreed that the decision "pretty clearly" does not impact special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump, which is on hold until the Supreme Court rules on Trump's presidential immunity claim on Monday.
“The decision essentially limits Section 1512(c)(2) to conduct that falsifies or tampers with in some way evidence or any other document or object used in an official proceeding,” Fitzpatrick said. “The statute would still apply to people who are accused of doing anything to any document involved in that certification, and one of the things that President Trump is accused of is working to create false election certificates and have those used instead of the real election certificates.”
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case.
Speaking at a campaign rally on Friday, Trump praised the court's ruling.
“They’ve been waiting for this decision for a long time. They’ve been waiting for a long time, and that was a great answer. That was a great thing for people who have been so horribly treated,” Trump told supporters in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Filings from other Jan. 6 defendants began hitting the docket Friday. Robert Turner, who was convicted of obstruction as well as a host of charges including two other felonies — civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers — after a jury trial this month, requested that a judge enter a motion of acquittal because of the Fischer ruling.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Friday suspended a trial scheduled for July 22 after prosecutors filed a joint motion with Jan. 6 defendant William Pope seeking to delay the case after the Supreme Court's ruling.
“Both parties are evaluating the decision, which has ramifications for the charges, presentation of evidence, and jury instructions at the trial in this matter,” the joint filing said.
U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich took a proactive approach on Friday by asking prosecutors and defense attorneys in three cases involving convicted and sentenced Jan. 6 defendants to propose a schedule for further proceedings on the impact of the ruling, noting that the defendants would have resentencing hearings. Those defendants were Guy Reffitt — the first Jan. 6 defendant to go to trial — who was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison in August 2022; Ronald Sandlin, who filmed himself assaulting officers and breaking into the Senate chamber and was sentenced to five years in federal prison in December 2022; and Jacob Travis Clark, who was sentenced to 33 months of incarceration in October 2023.
