The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the government cannot prosecute January 6 defendants under 1512(c)(2), the “Enron” statute, for generally obstructing “an official proceeding” unless they interfered with objects or documents.
The bombshell decision could result in hundreds of convictions against non-violent January 6 defendants being overturned — and could result in at least some charges being dropped against President Donald Trump as well.
1512(c)(2) was passed after the Enron scandal, when it was discovered that federal law had a loophole: it was illegal to instruct others to destroy evidence, but not illegal to destroy evidence oneself. Consequently, Congress passed a law prohibiting tampering with witnesses or evidence that is to be used in an “official proceeding.” The Department of Justice used that law to prosecute participants in the Capitol riot based on the idea that they had “obstructed” an official proceeding — i.e. the certification of the Electoral College vote in the 2020 presidential election. But critics said that 1512(c)(2) had never been intended to apply to protests or other First Amendment-connected activities.
In a 6-3 decision, with the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court overruled the (heavily anti-Trump) D.C. Circuit and said that 1512(c)(2) could not be used as broadly as the Department of Justice had done.
“To prove a violation of Section 1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we earlier explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so,” Roberts wrote. The term “otherwise” — as in “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding” — could not be used so broadly as to include trespassing.
via joemiller