Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Friday sided with conservatives in a landmark ruling that could see many of the charges against people who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol overturned or dropped.
As Breitbart News reported, the 6-3 majority decision In Fisher In this case, the Department of Justice 1512(c)(2)Although the law prohibits the destruction of evidence, it was not enacted for the purpose of protest activities.
Defendants cannot be charged under the law unless it is proven they obstructed the delivery of documents to Congress, as hundreds of others, including former President Donald Trump, have been charged with.
Justice Jackson, a left-leaning judge appointed by President Joe Biden, wrote the concurring opinion, arguing that the law cannot be stretched on the basis of “patriotism.”
In the United States, “men are not subject to criminal punishment because their conduct offends our patriotism or frustrates the general purpose which they sought to accomplish by the specific orders which they have disobeyed; nor can they be held guilty of crimes which the statutes have inadvertently failed to define and condemn.” Viereck v. United States, 318 US 236, 245 (1943). Our commitment to equal justice and the rule of law requires that courts faithfully apply the criminal law as written, even in times of national crisis…
Notwithstanding the shocking circumstances involved in this case and the government’s determination that charges merit prosecution, the task of this Court today is to determine what conduct is prohibited by the criminal statutes cited as the basis for the obstruction charges at issue here. I join the Court’s opinion because I agree with the majority that § 1512(c)(2) does not extend to “‘any form of obstruction,'” but is instead “limited by the list of criminal offenses set forth above” in § 1512(c)(1).
Interestingly, conservative jurist Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, wrote a dissenting opinion in which the court’s minority agreed that 1512(c)(2) was not intended to combat riots, but noted that “statutes often go beyond the issue that gave rise to them, and under the rules of statutory construction, we will follow the letter of the statute anyway.”
This incident Fisher v. United StatesNo. 23-5572, U.S. Supreme Court.
Joel B. Pollack is executive editor of Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday The show airs Sunday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. (4 to 7 p.m. ET) on SiriusXM Patriot. He recently published an e-book,Trumpian virtues: The lessons and legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency” is available on Audible. He is also the author of an e-book. Not Free or Fair: The 2020 US Presidential ElectionHe is the recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship in 2018. Follow him on Twitter. Joel Pollack.
