It’s been a busy couple of days at the Supreme Court. Since Friday there have been 7 opinions issued and there have been oral arguments in 4 cases.
Of the opinions issued, two are of general interest – Sheetz and DeVillers both property cases – and a third to Vets in particular, Rudisill V McDonough. James Rudisill served three separate periods of Active Duty and used his Montgomery GI bill benefits to obtain his undergrad degree. Later, he applied for Post-9/11 benefits to attend Yale Divinity School. The VA granted him only the remaining Montgomery benefits, and he appealed that decision to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals. SCOTUS ruled he was eligible for the maximum number of months of GI bill benefits because of the clear breaks in service.
On Monday the Court heard arguments in two cases, Snyder v US and Chiaverini V the City of Napoleon OH, Tuesday the Court heard Fischer V US and yesterday they heard Thornell v Jones. Snyder is a public corruption case, Chiaverini is a 4th amendment case and Thornell is a Death Penalty case. Frankly the only one I paid any attention to was Fischer. From Oyez:
Facts of the case
On January 6, 2021, while Congress was convening to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden, thousands of supporters of the losing candidate, Donald Trump, converged on the United States Capitol to disrupt the proceedings. The Trump supporters swarmed the building, overwhelming law enforcement officers who attempted to stop them. The chaos wrought by the mob forced members of Congress to stop the certification and flee for safety. Congress was not able to resume its work for six hours.
Joseph Fischer, Edward Lang, and Garret Miller were indicted for various offenses related to their involvement in the Capitol riot on January 6. All three were charged with felony offenses of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, and misdemeanor offenses of disorderly conduct in a Capitol building and in restricted grounds, involving the intent to disrupt congressional sessions and government functions. Additionally, each faced a count of obstruction of an official proceeding. The defendants challenged this obstruction charge, claiming that the statute does not prohibit their alleged conduct on that day. The district court agreed, holding that the statute does not apply to assaultive conduct, committed in furtherance of an attempt to stop Congress from performing a constitutionally required duty. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed, concluding that the natural, broad reading of that provision is that it applies to forms of obstructive conduct, not just those related to investigations and evidence.
Question
Does 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), which prohibits obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, include acts unrelated to investigations and evidence?
The Justices seemed split on this one, but not as split as I’ve seen during some other, recent oral arguments. The majority of the Justices expressed concerns about the decision to apply an obstruction provision in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law passed after the accounting fraud scandal at now-defunct energy company Enron to J6 cases. They grilled U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar about the law’s sweep, how it should be interpreted and whether the charge was necessary given the range of other criminal counts brought against J6 defendants.
Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared wary that a broad reading of the law could encroach on non-violent protests, emphasizing the maximum penalty of 20 years in prison under the obstruction charge. “Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial, or access to a federal courthouse, qualify?” Gorsuch asked Prelogar. “Would a heckler in today’s audience qualify, or at the State of the Union address?”
Gorsuch appeared to be drawing on actual events when he asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar whether people could be charged with obstructing an official proceeding if they rose in protest inside the courtroom, heckled the president at the State of the Union or pulled a fire alarm in the Capitol complex to delay a vote in Congress.
“There have been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings,” Justice Clarence Thomas said. “Has the government applied this provision to other protests in the past, and has this been the government’s position throughout the lifespan of this statute?”
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts seemed inclined to view the law narrowly, suggesting it might apply only to defendants who alter or destroy evidence – an interpretation that Fischer has asked the court to embrace.
As of now, I’d expect this ruling to come down as 5-4 against the government. The question becomes who goes which way. It’s pretty clear from the arguments, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh think the prosecutors overreached with the 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c) charges. It seems Roberts agrees, but not as strongly.
We’ll find out sometime in June if I’m correct.