The Supreme Court pulled some shenanigans related to January 6th defendants charged with "obstruction of an official proceeding," narrowing the ability of the government to apply that charge. Now, on its face, that sounds BAD. But in reality, it's kind of not a big deal.
The brilliant minds at Just Security broke it down and made me feel a whole lot better. It was a 6-3 ruling, but Barrett was in the dissent, Jackson with the majority. QUIRKY!
Here are some of the highlights of the ruling on Fischer vs US:
"The upshot is that the decision means little in terms of the pending charges against former President Donald Trump. It means potentially more to a subset of the January 6th defendants who were charged under this statute, who comprise only a fraction – 24% – of the existing January 6th defendants."
Ok, now we are talking. Keep going.
"And even within that 24%, in the great majority of cases that have resulted in a guilty verdict (by plea or after trial) for a 1512(c)(2) offense, the defendant was also found guilty of one or more other felonies (62%). Further, as to the 71 defendants who have been charged under Section 1512(c)(2) and are still awaiting trial, all of them are charged with crimes in addition to 1512(c)(2), and a majority are charged with one or more other felonies."
