On Monday federal prosecutors requested stays on pending January 6 court cases in order to evaluate a recent Supreme Court ruling that limited their prosecutions of the rioters. On Friday the Supreme Court made it harder to charge defendants with obstruction in cases related to the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill.
However, 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 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.”
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.
