A federal appeals court has determined that judges in Washington, D.C., predominantly left-leaning, erred in their sentencing of potentially hundreds of January 6 defendants. They used an inappropriate special procedure to increase the sentences.
According to a report by the Washington Examiner, there could be “potentially hundreds” of defendants who will need to be resentenced due to this error.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stated that the lower courts were incorrect in repeatedly asserting that the defendants, some charged for entering the Capitol building through open doors and others who rioted, were obstructing the “administration of justice”.
Many of these individuals were protesting against Joe Biden’s certification as president following the 2020 election, which is now confirmed to have been questionable.
For instance, never before in American elections has a sum like $400 million plus been donated by Mark Zuckerberg to election officials. This money was completely outside regular campaign funding programs that are monitored.
In addition, the FBI interfered by instructing media corporations to suppress accurate reporting about scandals involving Biden’s family revealed on a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden. A subsequent poll showed that if these details had been reported as usual, enough voters would have withdrawn their support for Biden so that he almost certainly would have lost to President Trump.
The Examiner detailed how a three-judge panel on the court rejected the Justice Department’s claim in an appeal involving defendant Larry Brock.
Brock was sentenced to two years in prison for obstructing congressional proceedings.
Judge John Bates at the trial level decided on his sentence by including claims that his penalty should be increased because he interfered with the administration of justice.
Circuit Judge Patricia Millett ruled in the decision, “Brock’s interference with one stage of the electoral college vote-counting process — while no doubt endangering our democratic processes and temporarily derailing Congress’s constitutional work — did not interfere with the ‘administration of justice,’”
Judges Cornelia Pillard and Judith Rogers concurred in the unanimous decision.
The Examiner clarified, “The judges considered the ‘multi-step’ process of certifying Electoral College votes, determining that the vote counting was just one part of a lengthy process to confirm the results of the 2020 election. They effectively stated that counting votes in Congress that day did not constitute ‘administration of justice,’ and therefore, anyone sentenced for participating in the riot should not face additional penalties for interfering with it.”
The report noted that it is currently unclear how many cases will be affected, although some 330 defendants were charged with obstruction under a statute known as Section 1512(c)(2).
This separate issue is still pending before the high court.
However, William Shipley, a lawyer representing multiple January 6 defendants, confirmed to The Examiner that this issue is now “potentially huge.”
“But it will be meaningless if the Supreme Court throws out 1512 in the Fischer case,” added Shipley.
He suggested this could overturn obstruction counts and enhancements for “every defendant” sentenced under that provision, according to The Examiner’s report.
Shipley anticipates a possible “flood of motions for release pending appeal.”
The Examiner’s report noted that President Trump is among the defendants facing such a count, after special counsel Jack Smith initiated his legal campaign against Trump.
Trump’s lawyers have already argued in court that the application was inappropriate.
They told the court, “The indictment takes a statute directed at the destruction of records in accounting fraud and applies it to disputing the outcome of a presidential election. This stretches the statutory language beyond any plausible mooring to its text.”