Supreme Court makes it harder to charge Trump with obstruction of justice and narrows the law applied against him and the January 6 rioters

The charges – and in some cases the convictions – against Hundreds of individuals Charges of participating within the riot on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, are resulting from be reconsidered and possibly dropped resulting from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 28, 2024. Among those charged under a broad interpretation of the obstruction of justice statute that has now been narrowed by the Supreme Court is former President Donald Trump.

In its decision of Fischer v. United StatesThe Supreme Court ruled that a federal law prohibiting obstruction of an official proceeding may not apply to 3 defendants accused of participating within the revolt on the U.S. Capitol. Although former President Donald Trump will not be a defendant within the case, Special investigator Jack Smith has charged him individually with the violation of the identical law.

As a law professor I’ll join Mr. Smith, who teaches and writes within the areas of constitutional law and federal courts, to elucidate what the court's decision means for the January 6 defendants – and for Smith's case against Trump.

Charges against Capitol rioters

According to their indictment Joseph Fischer, Edward Long And Garret Miller were present on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Prosecutors say all three men entered the Capitol through the riot and attacked cops. One of the boys, Lang, brandished a baseball bat and a stolen police shield, and one other, Miller, later called on social media for the assassination of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office charged the three men with various crimes, including Attack on a federal official, inappropriate behavior on Capitol grounds And Obstruction of a congressional procedureThis last allegation is the topic of the appeal before the Supreme Court.

Before trial, the defendants argued that the statute prosecutors had relied on to charge them with obstruction of justice applied only to tampering with evidence, to not violently disrupting a session of Congress. The district court agreed and dismissed the costs, however the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit overturned ruling and sent the case back for trial.

The Supreme Court then agreed to listen to the case, but adjourned the hearing while it considered the dispute over the scope of the obstruction of justice law.

Definition of a collective term

In a 6-3 opinion by Chief Justice John Robertsthe Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendants, holding that the law only prohibited tampering with evidence. It then remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to choose whether the defendants had violated the law in that narrow interpretation by attempting to stop Congress from obtaining and certifying the states' true electoral votes.

The court began with the text of the obstruction of justice statute. The law punishes anyone who “alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other item” or “otherwise obstructs, influences, or prevents any official proceeding.” The government argued that the defendants “otherwise obstructed” the strategy of certifying the outcomes of the 2020 election in Congress.

The court rejected that argument, nevertheless, noting that the phrase “otherwise impedes” refers only to impediments that — resembling altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a record, document, or object — impair the provision or integrity of evidence to be used in an official proceeding. The statutory catch-all term for “otherwise impedes” an official proceeding should be read along with the list of acts that precede it, the court explained. Otherwise, the list can be redundant.

The court also pointed to the historical background of the law. Congress, the court explained, had passed this special disability law in 2002 within the wake of the Enron accounting fraud scandalThe aim was to shut a loophole within the country's existing obstruction of justice laws, which on the time prohibited commissioning third parties to destroy incriminating evidence but stopping the destruction of the evidence oneself.

The court explained that the federal government's interpretation of the law went far beyond that purpose since it prohibited types of obstruction of evidence that Congress never intended to criminalize.

What this implies for the defendants of January 6 – and for Trump

The Supreme Court's decision doesn’t end the proceedings against the defendants within the Fischer criminal case; they’ll probably be tried for assault and disturbing the peace.

But it could end in the obstruction of justice charge being dismissed or the obstruction of justice convictions for other defendants from January 6 being overturned. According to an NPR databaseThe Federal Prosecutor's Office brought charges against no less than 250 other defendants for obstructing an official proceeding; 128 were convicted.

The ruling could also undermine special counsel Jack Smith’s case against former President Donald Trump, which Smith charged with obstruction under the identical lawIf that's the case survives a separate pending appeal before the Supreme Courtthe previous president will likely seek to have these charges dismissed.

Trump may not succeed, nevertheless, because the obstruction of justice charge is predicated partially on the allegation that he organized electoral lists to substantiate false election results to CongressThis may compromise the integrity of the evidence utilized in the certification process.

And obstruction of justice will not be the one charge the previous president faces. But the ruling could limit the case and make it tougher for the special counsel to present evidence of the Jan. 6 violence to the jury. Under this recent ruling, that violence alone couldn’t qualify as obstruction of justice.

The Fischer case also shows how judges can sometimes, especially in high-stakes cases, use methods of legal reasoning that they’re quick to criticize in other contexts. In the opinion, members of the Supreme Court's conservative majority pointed to the history of the obstruction of justice law – evidence that conservative jurists like the late Justice Antonin Scalia often described as unreliable.

The Supreme Court's decision in Fischer could have profound implications for the special counsel's historic prosecution of former President Trump.

But even when that will not be the case, the report still sheds essential light on the court's internal workings and the federal government's power to guard the integrity of its proceedings.