Supreme Court gives skeptical eye to key statute used to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters

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Conservatives on the court expressed varying degrees of skepticism about the charge of obstructing an official proceeding.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared divided on Tuesday, with conservatives expressing various degrees of skepticism about the statute used to prosecute more than 350 people involved with the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

Jackson said that trying to prevent the electoral count seemed to her like an obstruction of an official proceeding. And Sotomayor said that if this statute doesn't seem to be an exact match for the Jan. 6 attack, that is because there had never been an event like this one before. Justice Neil Gorsuch asked whether"a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify? Would a heckler in today's audience qualify or at the state of the union address?"Justice Samuel Alito followed up, posing this question:"Let's say that today while you're arguing, five people get up, and they shout either, 'Keep the Jan. 6 insurrectionists in jail,' or 'Free the Jan. 6 patriots.

Prelogar added that prosecutors have brought charges against 1,350 defendants in connection with Jan. 6, but because of the need to show intent to prevent the counting of the electoral ballots, only about 350 of those defendants have been charged with obstruction.

 

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