US Supreme Court narrows law used in hundreds of January 6 cases

The US Supreme Court has narrowed the use of an obstruction charge brought against hundreds of individuals in connection with the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 2021, in a decision that poses a new legal hurdle to prosecutors pursuing those cases.

The decision centres on a criminal charge — obstruction of an official proceeding — that the US Department of Justice has used against more than 350 defendants who stormed the Capitol in a bid to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

The obstruction charge in question stems from a section of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act enacted in 2002 in response to several accounting scandals, including Enron.

In a 6-3 opinion, the high court on Friday endorsed a more limited application of that law, saying that a lower court had erred in construing it more broadly.

“It would be peculiar to conclude that in closing the Enron gap, Congress created a catch-all provision that reaches beyond the scenarios that prompted the legislation,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

To prove a violation of the law, federal prosecutors “must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so”, the majority held.

It resisted what it described as an overly broad reading that would transform an “evidence-focused statute” into a “one-size-fits-all solution to obstruction of justice”.

US attorney-general Merrick Garland in a statement said he was “disappointed” by the ruling, “which limits an important federal statute that the department has sought to use to ensure that those most responsible for [the January 6] attack face appropriate consequences”.

The “vast majority” of the more than 1,400 defendants linked to January 6 “will not be affected by this decision”, Garland added, stressing that none of the defendants had been charged solely with the offence featured in the Supreme Court case.

Prosecutors may now have to reconsider a large number of cases brought against January 6 rioters as a result of the decision, while defendants convicted of the charge in question may seek resentencing.

The vote was not split along ideological lines, with liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joining the conservative majority. Conservative Amy Coney Barrett penned the dissent, backed by liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. 

Barrett wrote that the legal provision in question was “very broad” and Congress would not have targeted an event like January 6 when writing the statute. “Who could blame Congress for that failure of imagination?” she asked.

“But statutes often go further than the problem that inspired them, and under the rules of statutory interpretation, we stick to the text anyway,” she said, adding that the majority “does textual backflips to find some way — any way — to narrow the reach of” the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

The obstruction charge in question was also used against Donald Trump in a federal criminal indictment accusing him of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump may attempt to leverage Friday’s decision to argue for dismissing that charge — which, if successful, would weaken one of the most serious criminal cases against him. He is still awaiting a decision on his attempt to claim presidential immunity in that case, which will probably be handed down by the Supreme Court next week.

The January 6 cases have become a political talking point for Trump on the campaign trail as he seeks another four years in the White House as the Republican candidate. He has pledged to pardon those imprisoned in connection with the riot, whom he has described as “hostages”.

A senior campaign adviser for Biden, the Democratic candidate in the 2024 general election, in a statement said the ruling “does not change the fundamental truth that Donald Trump will always put himself over our democracy”, pointing to Trump failing to condemn the January 6 rioters during Thursday’s presidential debate.