Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that the government cannot prosecute January 6 defendants under 1512(c)(2), also referred to as the “Enron” statute, for obstructing “an official proceeding” unless they interfered with any objects or documents.
The bombshell ruling from the nation’s highest court could result in hundreds of non-violent J6 convictions being overturned. Furthermore, it could lead to the dismissal of at least one charge against former President Donald Trump.
For context, 1512(c)(2) was implemented following the Enron scandal when a loophole in federal law was discovered, suggesting that it was illegal to instruct others to destroy evidence, but not to do so oneself. Subsequently, Congress passed the “Enron” statute, making it illegal to interfere with evidence or witnesses during an “official proceeding.”
Liberals have argued that 1512(c)(2) applies to the certification of the Electoral College vote in the highly contested 2020 presidential election. However, critics have pointed out that the statute was never intended to be applied to protest activities that would be protected under the First Amendment.
The Epoch Times reported that Section 1512(c) states: “Whoever corruptly (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, arguing that 1512(c)(2) was incorrect for Biden’s Department of Justice to use the statute so broadly in the case of the J6 protestors. Roberts argued that it must be established that the protestors legitimately interfered with “records, documents, objects,” whereas the law could not encompass trespassing.
“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 claimed. The term “otherwise” — as in “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding,” did not qualify trespassing, per the justice.
In an unexpected twist, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed with the conservative majority opinion, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett led the dissent. Justice Barrett claimed, “Section 1512(c)(2) is a very broad provision, and admittedly, events like January 6th were not its target. … But statutes often go further than the problem that inspired them, and under the rules of statutory interpretation, we stick to the text anyway.”
Justice Jackson filed her own concurring opinion with the majority decision, arguing that the “Enron” statute “does not reach ‘all forms of obstructive conduct.’” She claimed the “peaceful transfer of power is a fundamental democratic norm, and those who attempted to disrupt it in this way inflicted a deep wound on this Nation,” but the current case is “not about the immorality of those acts” and is focused on a narrower question.
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