The Court’s Ruling:
The Court narrowly construed 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), the statute under which most of the January 6, 2021, invaders of the United States Capitol have been or are being prosecuted, to cover only corrupt efforts to destroy or hide tangible evidence needed in an “official proceeding.” Court Opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, Part A, pp. 4-10; see also 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(1). This narrow construction of the statute may justify lower federal courts in dismissing charges thereunder against January 6 participants like Mr. Joseph Fischer, who brought this case to the Supreme Court, and who might plausibly deny any intent to stop Congress’s counting of Electoral votes on January 6. The vote on the Court itself in this case was 6-3, with Justices Barrett, Kagan, and Sotomayor dissenting.
My Opinion:
Although not mentioned in either the Court’s majority Opinion, or in the dissenting Opinion, the judiciary’s traditional “rule of lenity” for construing penal statutes justifies the Court’s narrow reading of Section 1512(c). Under the “rule of lenity,” judges are encouraged to read penal statutes as narrowly as they can, while remaining faithful to the statute’s text and purpose, for the purpose of defending the freedom of individuals from punishment for behavior they may have reasonably believed to be legal. Section 1512(c), enacted in 2002 in response to some document destruction behaviors underlying the Enron scandal, certainly has its ambiguities as to the scope of any coverage beyond that kind of behavior. It should be noted, however, that the Court seemed to leave ample room to continue the aggressive prosecution of January 6 participants who cannot credibly deny an intent to prevent the Congressional counting of Electoral votes on January 6, 2021.
Dan Rhea
RECENT RULINGS 