The statute is also the basis for one of the four obstruction counts brought against former President Donald Trump in the criminal case currently pending against him in federal court in Washington.
Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election.
Roberts said the statute was limited to documents and evidence destruction, and that the word otherwise was not meant to broaden the meaning of the law into a catchall provision. Writing for the court majority, Chief Justice Roberts said the statute was limited to documents and evidence destruction, and that the word otherwise was not meant to broaden the meaning of the law into a catchall provision.The case was brought by Joseph Fischer, a former police officer in a township near Harrisburg, Pa., who joined the mob on Jan. 6th, even recording a four-minute cell phone video in which he is heard yelling, “charge,” and is seen in a scrum with police officers.
Defendant Fischer’s lawyer, Jeffrey Green, maintained that the reason the government chose to use the statute at all was that it has a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Even though nobody has actually gotten such a stiff penalty, he said, for prosecutors it is “a really big cudgel” to use in plea bargaining with defendants.
Goodman notes that Trump is different from the Capitol rioters because the obstruction charges against him involve efforts to interfere with the electoral college certificates arriving at the desk to be counted on Jan. 6th, and the use of false elector certificates—all of which would seem to fall under the tampering-with-evidence provision of the obstruction statute.
Finally, the study, found that until Friday, 71 people were still awaiting trial on the obstruction charge, but more than half are also charged with another felony. While those felonies may not have penalties as severe as the obstruction charge, if the defendants are found guilty of those other crimes, the sentencing judge is permitted to consider the conduct charged in the obstruction case in determining the length of the sentence.
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