Joseph Fischer confronts policemen on January 6, 2021
18 U.S.C. 1812(c)Whoever corruptly—(1)alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; orshall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
n Aristotle:
Rhetoric
n "Equity’s
existence partly is and partly is not intended by the legislators; not intended
where they have noticed no defect in the law; intended where they find
themselves unable to define things exactly, and are obligated to legislate as
if that held good always which in fact only holds good usually.
The right wing majority of the United States Supreme Court asserts its fidelity to text. But we all know that legislators cannot predict the range of future conduct. So there are residual clauses in statutes. Yet the majority has vacated the conviction of Joseph Fischer, a January 6 rioter, for obstructing an official proceeding.
But. mirabile dictu Amy Coney Barrett stepped off the train, With remarkable eloquence.
JUSTICE BARRETT, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR and JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting.
Joseph Fischer allegedly joined a mob of rioters that breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021. At the time, Congress was meeting in a joint session to certify the Electoral College results. The riot forced Congress to suspend the proceeding, delaying it for several hours. The Court does not dispute that Congress’s joint session qualifies as an “official proceeding”; that rioters delayed the proceeding; or even that Fischer’s alleged conduct (which includes trespassing and a physical confrontation with law enforcement) was part of a successful effort to forcibly halt the certification of the election results. Given these premises, the case that Fischer can be tried for “obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding” seems open and shut.
So why does the Court hold otherwise? Because it simply cannot believe that Congress meant what it said. Section 1512(c)(2) is a very broad provision, and admittedly, events like January 6th were not its target. (Who could blame Congress for that failure of imagination?) But statutes often go further than the problem that inspired them, and under the rules of statutory interpretation, we stick to the text anyway. The Court, abandoning that approach, does textual backflips to find some way , any way—to narrow the reach of subsection (c)(2). I respectfully dissent.
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