Federal prosecutors on Monday have requested stays on pending January 6 court cases in order to evaluate a recent Supreme Court ruling that limited their prosecutions of the rioters.
The Supreme Court on Friday made it harder to charge defendants with obstruction in cases related to the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill. But charges can still be brought if prosecutors can prove that rioters were intentionally trying to stop the arrival of certificates used to certify electoral votes during the riot.
The prosecutors requested the delays in the trials for three rioters so far, including Oath Keeper member Donovan Crowl, who is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of obstruction, per Politico.
“The Court did not reject the application of [the obstruct law] to January 6,” federal prosecutors in a court filing. “Rather, the Court explained that the government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records … or attempted to do so.”
The prosecutors are requesting 30-60 days to evaluate the impact of the ruling in Crowl's case. Their request for an indefinite delay in a second case to consider the Supreme Court ruling has already been approved by a different judge.
The Supreme Court said in Fischer v. United States that the obstruction statue, under which hundreds of rioters have been prosecuted, was intended to punish people who destroyed, manipulated, or concealed physical documents in an investigation. But Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who ruled with the majority, said physical documents could have been impaired by defendant Joseph Fischer's actions during the riot.
“If so, then Fischer’s prosecution [for obstruction] can, and should, proceed,” Jackson wrote. “That issue remains available for the lower courts to determine.”
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