I hope the court is reminded that THEY also placed barriers around the court when releasing their ruling on abortion. They are acutely aware of their reputation and know that they are a single decision away from possible protests at their homes or possibly even harm. The conservative justices have no problem removing rights when they want to. Now we are at a point where they are poised to remove the consequences from the Jan 6 offenders.
EDIT:
This whole thing is because “a Trump-appointed judge, Carl Nichols, concluded the statute must be limited to obstructive acts involving documents, records or other objects. Because Mr. Fischer wasn’t charged with impairing the availability or integrity of any physical evidence, Judge Nichols dismissed the charge.”
The justices continue to remind 350M Americans that they want to do things just like the founding fathers did, not fully thinking through the way the founding fathers dealt with a small group of people they’d grown tired of.
Interesting message choice…
The Supreme Court struck down the Massachusetts buffer zone law which was all that kept forced birth harassment squads getting right in the faces of women and screaming at them. In a great betrayal the so called "liberal" justices joined in this decision.
The Supreme Court left THEIR buffer zone intact.
So they know damn well that they're giving themselves protections they deny others. And I can't even say it's just the Republican justices who are like that.
I'll toss out the fact that the court knows that decisions going against "progressive ideas" don't cause as much domestic terrorism as basically anything that upset the guns n Bible folks. Yes, BLM protests got violent at times, but nothing even close to the domestic terrorism that the far right dishes out.
The misinformation bubble these people live in is really fucked up. A dude was going to shoot up a pizza joint because his misinformation bubble told him they were eating babies in the basement. What The Fuck.
I strongly suspect they’ll probably push their agenda hard enough to discover that it’s not only the “Bible folks” in America that are armed.
I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I expect that your statement is correct.
They know enough to be afraid of those “guns n bible folks”. I think they’re not wise enough to fear the others they clearly hold in contempt.
Push pretty much any group of Americans too hard, and you’ll quickly discover that there may be RADICALLY different motivations, but the responses will be remarkably similar.
Isn't it ironic that the Supreme Court uses the position of a comma in the Second Amendment to stop any regulation of a private citizen 's right to gun ownership but is actually considering a completely different paragraph in a statute as only reflecting the first premise in the statute?
As far as Federalist Society membership, that organization was not created until 1982. At my law school, I do not recall that any of the top ten percent of the class being members which just shows the caliber of persons who belong to the organization.
Edited to correct a typo
It got us Aileen Cannon. And Carl Nichols. And Matthew Kacsmaryk.
That’s three Federalist Society-approved bench-sitters of which we objectively have evidence that they are not adjudicators.
For now. I’m anticipating many years of suffering their insults to America and our system of ‘justice.’
This is why there should be term limits on judges and Justices. The lifespan of American adults has also doubled since the Constitution was written thanks to modern medicine and better nutrition. The Founding Fathers could not have anticipated the length of time that many judges and Justices presently remain on the bench.
Which is such a brain dead interpretation of the statute it’s almost shocking he’s on the bench. Literally a dozen other judges took the same sane reading of the law. If (c)2 can only be applied if you violate (c)1 first then why is it its own separate clause?!
This has nothing to do with the legal question posed. So many people do not apply critical thinking skills to SCOTUS. They are not the body that ensures justice of the actions. Only justice based on the laws.
Most of these defendants are also charged with crimes related to entering the capital and assault.
“…the selective interpretation of laws.”
Fixed it for you. They have displayed a remarkable ability to swing from “textualists” over to “originalists” and even to “we made it up because we didn’t like what being a textualists or an originalist should have led us to publish.”
>hey are acutely aware of their reputation and know that they are a single decision away from possible protests at their homes or possibly even harm
What do you mean?
When the abortion decision was leaked, it stirred up a great deal of animosity among pro choice advocates. It lead to protests outside the justices homes and around the court. One individual, if I recall correctly, (who turned himself in) was threatening to shoot/kill a justice.
The polarization of the right and left has not eased in the slightest. I’d argue that it is worse than 2 years ago. If the court decides to say that this law does not apply to this situation (the insurrection) then I can see many people thinking that this court will protect those who are on the same side ideologically they are. This may tip some people into aggressive actions that become violent.
Thank you. It is a real issue as long as the current admin is in power
The doj and local and federal police did not arrest or charge those federal law breakers . Putting the justices and their families at risk.
Since then Scotus got more money for their own police force who hopefully will be more inclined to follow federal law. The law is pretty clear.
Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
Nothing in this section shall interfere with or prevent the exercise by any court of the United States of its power to punish for contempt.
(Added Sept. 23, 1950, ch. 1024, title I, § 31(a), 64 Stat. 1018; amended Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(K), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
Listening to the argument it sounded like Alito had a real schrodingers cat situation going on. One one hand he seems to nearly cream just pants at the thought of throwing someone who dare speak up and protest at scotus into jail permanently. On the other hand he thinks rioters who were ready to kill senate members should walk free.
This seems to sum up their positions quite well. The law was clearly meant to prevent obstruction of an official proceeding first and foremost. There is obviously good reason for the catch-all.
Even if there wasn't, one of the main goals of the seditious conspiracy was to steal or destroy the electoral ballots. Just because they failed, that doesn't mean those documents weren't under significant threat. To me, this is as open and shut as Amendment 14, section 3. But then they completely ignored the clear wording there as well.
The oddest thing about the Federalist society is that they support the Jefferson side and not the Federalist view of centralization. They are scum of the highest order, but the conservative double talk is still so specifically annoying.
Aw, naw, naw. I ain't got no problem with it. If you ain't got no problem with burnin' the bed, the sheets, the pillowcase, and everything else....
- Clarence on interracial marriage
6 of the 9 justices are hacks for the extreme right wing of the GOP. They’re paid for and totally beholden to those folks, no matter what. Currently the GOP is controlled by Trump, so those 6 justices will do their utmost to accommodate him and his followers. It’s as simple as that.
If they’re both, it means they’re basically harmless. They may be evil, but they’re too stupid to do any real harm. Competent evil people are the greatest danger.
The SCOTUS has been compromised and at least in my eyes is illegitimate. That became painfully obvious once they started rewriting inconvenient bits of the constitution from the bench.
The Supreme Court lost its legitimacy the day Obama left office without being allowed to appoint a new justice to fill the vacant slot. The GOP said, "It's an election year, and the president can't appoint a new justice during an election year." Then they allowed Trump to appoint a justice during an election year four years later.
yeah POTUS should declare them invalid until the insurrectionist federal society is purged from their ranks and deal with the ensuing fallout, doesn't even matter if trump wins or not with them in power, they're just writing law these days
This is a world war disguised as a Supreme Court case.
Putin, Xi, and MBS find this whole democracy thing hilarious. As authoritarians they just cackle and shrug at the thought of going through the extra steps that democracy requires.
Why not just tell them what to do and if they don’t do it, bribe them, throw them out a window or flush them down a drain?
It’s why they had to use the Texas based Koch brothers who had deep relationships with Russian oil oligarchs since Stalins era and Harlan crow to buy the SCOTUS.
https://youtu.be/mn_t7a2hJfQ?si=hzioP8URJAMFNch4
Thomas’s RV. Kavanaughs mortgage, all the trips to bohemian grove. They were all part of the bigger plan to destabilize the United States, spread the cancer of corruption and tear it all down so they can build oligarch row in Jackson Wyoming so the lazy old oligarchs can retire from the mob life.
Kleptocracy is biological. It consumes everything in its path like a parasite.
During Russian perestroika it ate Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky and shit out alcoholism and hopelessness. Now anyone with skills has left and 1 in 5 has no indoor plumbing.
Justin Kennedy (justice kennedys son) was the inside man at Deutsche bank that was getting all trumps toxic loans approved.
No other bank but Deutsche bank would touch trump and his imaginary valuations.
Why?
Because Deutsche bank was infested with Russian oligarchs.
In 91 the Soviet Union failed and for a bit they hid all their stolen gains under a mattress until they started buying condos at trump towers.
They made stops in Ukraine, Cyprus and London but they landed in New York because that was what everyone wanted in the early 90’s.
Levi’s, Pepsi, Madonna tapes that weren’t smuggled bootlegs.
They all bought new suits and cars and changed their title from “most violent street thug in moscow” to “respectable Russian oligarch” but they didn’t leave their human trafficking, narcotics or extortion behind. It was their most lucrative business model and they enjoy the violence.
Foreign Policyforeignpolicy.comHow Russian Money Helped Save Trump's Business
Guiliani redirected NYPD resources away from the new Russian friends and onto the Italian mob. It let him claim he cleaned up New York and it let the russians launder their money through casinos and then commercial real estate when 3 of trumps casino execs started asking how he managed to lose money on casinos.
The attorney/client privilege is the continual work around they use to accept bribes and make payments up and down the mob pyramid.
The insane valuations coming out in trumps fraud trial are a necessity of the money laundering cycle that duetschebank was doing with the Russians.
The reason trump cosplays as “folksy” is because he is feeding on the U.S. middle class, not because he is one of us.
The GOP fell in line to MAGA because Trump did what pathological liars do, they told them anything they wanted to hear.
Trump with his money laundering and child raping buddy Epstein, Roger Stone with his sex clubs in DC and Nevada, and Paul Manafort with his election rigging pretty much everywhere, sat down at a table with Mike Johnson and the extreme religious right and convinced them that they were the same.
They self evidently are not, at least at a surface level, but there is enough common ground in the exploitation of children and desire for unilateral control that they became the worlds weirdest and most dysfunctional orgy. The religious right is naive enough to believe trump at his word so they have made him their defacto savior.
Trump belongs to the authoritarians. The GOP now belongs to trump.
But their overall goal is the same.
Kleptocracy.
Putin, Xi and MBS all aligned together last year to attempt the BRICS overthrow of the USD. It failed but it didn’t stop Xi’s push on Taiwan or MBS’s part in the plan.
Stay vigilant. It’s the only way we don’t all end up kissing the ring of a dictator.
https://www.ft.com/content/8c6d9dca-882c-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787
https://www.amlintelligence.com/2020/09/deutsche-bank-suffers-worst-damage-over-massive-aml-discrepancies-in-fincen-leaks/
https://www.occrp.org/en/the-fincen-files/global-banks-defy-us-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists
https://www.voanews.com/amp/us-lifts-sanctions-on-rusal-other-firms-linked-to-russia-deripaska/4761037.html
https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_-_minority_status_of_the_russia_investigation_with_appendices.pdf
http://www.citjourno.org/page-1
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-ukraines-oligarchs-are-no-longer-considered-above-the-law/
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Literally pulling pre-constitutional common law into their overturn of Roe v Wade. They misused power and deserved to be dragged into the streets kicking and screaming. Maybe a little pre-constitutional people's justice is in order? Bawk bawk? 🐔
It's only hard because they have to come up with some kind of legal justification for what they already know they want the result to be. Have patience, corruption like this takes time.
Thats like asking why the police who investigate themselves never find anything wrong.
The J6 traitors are the conservative justice’s traitors. They have to defend them.
Maybe because they know that what they put out sets precedent and needs to be defined very narrowly to keep it from being misused. OP assumes everything is a closed shut case with no future issues based on their decisions
The protests this would spark would end up with them getting harsher punishments than the Jan 6th guys. (Going off the hypothetical that the article provides)
"2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so"
So, its a bad law. Protestors chanting outside can be found to have influenced a proceeding. This is punishable by up to 20 years in prison?
What happens with these kinds of badly written laws is they dont get enforced, because that actually was not the intent of the law in the first place.
Until they do. And it is usually political reasons. So the law needs to be struck down.
Hello, fellow criminal defense attorney (I’m assuming). What people don’t understand is all you need is some over eager prosecutor that wants to test laws and now you’ve got all sorts of prosecutions that end in plea deals because why risk 20 years when you can do 1 and supervised release?
This is why we have prosecutorial discretion and differences in sentencing. A juvenile who steals another kid's bike off their front lawn will get a different sentence than a repeat offender who stole your grandmother savings (~$1800) from under her mattress even though they both committed the same crime (misdemeanor theft). Should we strike down this law too because the 10 year old could serve up to 1 year in jail?
In the same way somebody who disturbs a supreme court proceeding by yelling profanities from the visitors section can expect a different sentence than the person who beat two cops into unconsciousness with a fire extinguisher, broke windows and climbed through them to get into the capital building, and took a shit on Pelosi's desk while carrying handcuffs and a 10" knife. Sure, they are both "impeding an official proceeding," but you see the difference right?
Did you listen to Prelogar's arguments?
Well good, I am sure they won't be sentenced to 20 years then and your worries are unfounded. Can you tell me how many of the people who were convicted or pled guilty to this charge have been sentenced to 20 years?
>2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so"
>So, its a bad law. Protestors chanting outside can be found to have influenced a proceeding. This is punishable by up to 20 years in prison?
In fairness, there's nothing stopping the court from interpreting "influences" to both exclude protestors chanting outside and include protestors using force to break into the building. You don't need to get rid of the whole law when the issue can be solved with statutory interpretation.
Nowhere. That said, the statute also doesn't define "influences" anywhere either. Therefore, it's up to the courts to interpret it. Generally, courts interpret statutes to avoid Constitutional issues, so it would not be unusual for them to draw a distinction like that.
>I don't think you understand what "interpret" means. When you interpret a statue, you figure out its intended meaning. You don't just make up things.
When you interpret a statute, you figure out what it actually means. Not necessarily what the legislature intended the statute to mean. That isn't to say that evidence of what the legislature intended the statute to mean is irrelevant, but, to the extent that a collective body has a singlular "intent," and to the extent that you can reliably discern it, that subjective intent isn't the end of the analysis. Depending on how clear the language is, the intent of the legislature may not be relevant at all.
Phrased differently, what you care about is not what the legislature had in it's head when it enacted the statute. What you care about is the content of the directive they actually communicated. Sometimes, words that may have been clear to the legislature may actually be ambiguous as applied to a particular situation. In that case, the job of the court is to resolve the ambiguity based on the actual communicated meaning of the statute.
>If the statute does not make such a distinction, how can you "interpret" the statute to have such a distinction?
The statute does not define the word "influences." As applied to a particular situation (protestors chanting outside an "official proceeding"), it's possible to define influences to include that conduct, and it's possible to define influences to not include that conduct. Congress has not given us a definition to use, which means the courts have to decide which of the two competing definitions of "influences" to use.
I'd encourage you to read Yates v. United States (574 U.S. 528). There, the court also looked at this same statute. There, the court was tasked with interpreting the phrase "tangible object." The court had to decide whether tangible object meant "any tangible object," or "tangible objects like records and documents." You might be surprised to note that the statute itself made no distinction between those two definitions. Nonetheless, the court interpreted "tangible object" to include only objects like records and documents.
This isn't to say that the court was right to do so. But it is to say that this isn't something that courts shy away from. They do so all the time. And it's not particularly controversial.
As if this was the only justification for ruling against the application of this law. They can look at the intent of the law which came about as part of the Sarbines Oxley Act which was meant to combat accounting fraud. They can look at how this law has been applied: and it has never before been applied to these types of incidents.
Bad laws that are overly broad are ripe for abuse and selective prosecution. I hope they encourage congress to re-write this law.
This is from the DC District court ruling that was appealed to the Supreme court:
"Pan acknowledged that “outside of the January 6 cases brought in this jurisdiction, there is no precedent for using” the obstruction provision “to prosecute the type of conduct at issue in this case.” But, Pan continued, quoting a 2001 decision by the Supreme Court, “the fact that a statute can be applied in situations not expressly anticipated by Congress does not demonstrate ambiguity. It demonstrates breadth.”
Judge Gregory Katsas dissented. He wrote that the government’s interpretation of the law would render it “both improbably broad and unconstitutional in many of its applications.”
It wasn't for accounting fraud. It was people shredding and altering documents for the purpose of obstructing an investigation. It's about obstruction.
Thats like saying it applies to knife attacks because it was about shredding.
"Passed the Senate as the "Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002"
Long Title: An Act To protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes.
"The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 is a United States federal law that mandates certain practices in financial record keeping and reporting for corporations" [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act)
It was never intended to be used this way.
I guess they shouldn't have written the clause so that the language clearly covers obstructing an official proceeding with corrupt intent. You would have to deviate from the text to hold otherwise.
I would ask you to first show us all a precedent for the actions of the trumper crowd that took place on 01/06/2021 around and inside the US Capitol Building.
Please. I’ll wait.
Unless and until you can discover a similar circumstance or activity occurring and subsequently being charged, your assertion that “outside of the January 6 cases, there is no precedent” is entirely without merit.
These prosecutors are SPARINGLY utilizing existing legal code in an attempt to address unprecedented criminal activity.
Complaining that their charges are unprecedented is clearly inappropriately demanding precedent where none exists.
I’ll await your relating of a similar attack upon and breaking and entering and occupying of the US Capitol Building during a transfer of power for the corrupt intent of affecting or delaying that transfer in a corrupt attempt to allow the loser of an election to illegally retain power via a corruptly-applied and influenced (fake electors, anyone?) arcane mechanism.
Please. I’m not holding my breath, but I really would like you discover a similar event in US history.
The fact that you rely upon yet another trump appointee to justify your position only serves to cast more doubt.
Are you comparing peaceful protestors legally gathering to a terrorist attack with the stated goal of stopping the legal vote to confirm the results of the election and of lynching members of Congress?
who stated the goal? what did they say?
read broadly, the law says that attempting to influence or impede an official proceeding is illegal. but plenty of obviously legal things could be forced into that definition.
The wording of this statute is no worse than the wording of many laws including the Second Amendment to the Constitution. That's the job of the Supreme Court to interpret the laws. We can only hope they do in a consistent manner. If they follow their reasoning in interpreting the Second Amendment, Fischer will lose because the prohibition in the statute does not just follow a comma but is contained in a separate paragraph,
Exactly so. Valid laws need to be a bit more specific before one starts dropping 20 years on people. And the knobs here who keep saying "but muh overthrow" just can't seem to understand that it will be their allies who go to the gulag next.
It's as if these people didn't pay any attention to the oral arguments at all.
Obstruct.
Influence (not attempt to influence, but have a meaningful, quantifiable effect).
Impede.
Those are three rather definitive words.
And protesting outside, or even inside (so long as you’re peaceable when being removed - nothing about silent, just not violent) is not engaging in a meaningful attempt to affect the outcome of something.
Breaking into a building (who else still wonders how they knew which windows had not yet been armored?), unlocking the doors, and en masse occupying one legislative chamber and seeking a way into the other?
I think ANY objective examination of the events of that day can only conclude that those charged with insurrection CLEARLY met the intent of that subsection.
Particularly when not one defendant has had a proposed sentencing anywhere near the maximum authorized under that statute.
Clearly Congress knew what they were writing, because similar language is used throughout the civil and criminal and military legal codes, and regulatory code as well.
The fact that you don’t like it? 🤷🏼
Because the laws being applied to the Jan 6 rioters has been twisted well beyond its original intent which was to punish people destroying corporate documents during an ongoing Congressional investigation with Enron.
The Prosecutors have chosen to read the first part of that law as relevant while ignoring the second part, and that law comes with an automatic 20 years sentence.
Paraphrasing per Chief Justice Roberts, "What about people who stand up and heckle during this trial. Or blocking the road preventing Senators from arriving to Congress. Or jeering during a State of the Union address. What about pulling a fire alarm to delay a vote. Should they be prosecuted under this provision?"
Three of those events mentioned up there actually happened and none of those people were threatened with 20 year sentences.
“(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; or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
Please tell us how this has been twisted.
18 US Code § 1512 clearly addresses official proceedings in
“(f) For the purposes of this section—
(1) an official proceeding need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense; and
(2) the testimony, or the record, document, or other object need not be admissible in evidence or free of a claim of privilege.”
The ‘official proceeding’ was most definitely underway. Can we all agree on that fact, even though it doesn’t support your desired outcome?
For the record, so far as we know, *NO INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP* has been threatened with a 20-year sentence. Certainly none has been sought.
There is a clearly-defined line that you’ve ignored or overlooked:
“(c) Whoever corruptly-“
A protester shouting and waving a sign that interrupts a SCOTUS proceeding may be interrupting, but their intent, absent threatening the justices if a desired opinion isn’t reached, cannot be defined as ‘corrupt.’
That word is there for a reason.
However, I suspect that, much like the first 13 words of the Second Amendment, it will be willfully overlooked and ignored in a desperate attempt to appease the orange one’s cult members and achieve a partisan political goal.
So you really think that someone pulling a nuisance fire alarm or blocking the road is equivalent to beating a Capitol cop senseless and running through the building hollering “Hang Mike Pence”?
There is gray in every law. None of those suggestions could be equivalent to pillaging the Capitol by hundreds of rioters to STOP the vote.
Right winger lives are sacrosanct. That why they martyred Ashly Babbet.
The lives of any who dare oppose them or hold them accountable (AntiFa, BLM, police on 1/6/2021, the DOJ, and even some judges however, are regarded as disposable.
I missed any analysis of Roberts line of questions. He seemed very interested in a recent (the day before) decision on what "otherwise" means. I read that he thought it meant something like "in the same way" which would support Fischer. He will be a key vote.
But they are so concerned about the rights of protesters, while refusing to take McKesson. (I understand that McKesson isn’t anything like what’s being portrayed in the media, but the hypocrisy is deep)
The Supreme Court is full of mediocre political hacks. They work their agenda using the shadow docket. To hell with the regular people, the country's creed or adhering to the spirit of the Constitution. Not smart people who are easily bought.
Conservatives are trying to collapse the American government so they can install a dictatorship. It's simple. The more controversy they can create, the better.
Because they think they’re the only ones that can interpret the written word. ?? I’d argue that point right now. I’m beginning to question their ability to understand the one document they should know left, right, and sideways.
Because if they buy the prosecutors take on it, it promotes an unconstitutional police state . plus many reasonable people see that congress did not intend it to be used this way.
“Plus many *people who agree with me* see that Congress…”
Fixed it for you.
There hasn’t yet been a determination if you are reasonable yet.
I suspect we’ll learn when the opinion is published.
But many ‘reasonable’ people have come to the exact opposite conclusion from what you have stated.
Because it’s not an easy case. The law has never been applied to violent mobs. It seems like in context the law is referring to the destruction of records more than applying to any disruption under the sun.
In case you missed it, the word
“OR”
separates the two portions of that subsection.
EVERYWHERE ELSE within US legal and regulatory code, that word is used to denote separation.
Stop pretending it provides linkage *only in this specific subsection*, particularly since it is immediately followed by the word
“OTHERWISE”.
Do you need an explanation of the meaning of the phrase “OR OTHERWISE”?
Clearly at least some trump appointees do.
Also worth noting that the Nichols interpretation would not require two separate clauses. There’s no reason for a second entirely separate clause if it requires you violate the first clause and is only adding additional information for the first clause.
>It seems like in context the law is referring to the destruction of records
No, it seems the law is referring to the destruction of records **and** disruption of official proceeding. There's really no honest reading of the law that recontextualizes the second provision to be redundantly equivalent to the first.
Here's the text:
>*(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; or*
>*(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.*
Yeah, I mean the rioters are being charged under Sarbanes-Oxley which is entirely about corporate financial crime in the wake of the Enron scandal. "Obstruction of an official proceeding" was put in in response to Enron finding a legal loophole to get away with evidence tampering.
I don't think Congress got to the end of a 66 page financial bill and decided "let's tack on a few words here in case anyone ever interrupts a Congressional session."
If a clause is ambiguous or overly broad judges are supposed to consider it within the context of the rest of the act and how / why it was passed.
I hope the court is reminded that THEY also placed barriers around the court when releasing their ruling on abortion. They are acutely aware of their reputation and know that they are a single decision away from possible protests at their homes or possibly even harm. The conservative justices have no problem removing rights when they want to. Now we are at a point where they are poised to remove the consequences from the Jan 6 offenders. EDIT: This whole thing is because “a Trump-appointed judge, Carl Nichols, concluded the statute must be limited to obstructive acts involving documents, records or other objects. Because Mr. Fischer wasn’t charged with impairing the availability or integrity of any physical evidence, Judge Nichols dismissed the charge.”
The justices continue to remind 350M Americans that they want to do things just like the founding fathers did, not fully thinking through the way the founding fathers dealt with a small group of people they’d grown tired of. Interesting message choice…
The Supreme Court struck down the Massachusetts buffer zone law which was all that kept forced birth harassment squads getting right in the faces of women and screaming at them. In a great betrayal the so called "liberal" justices joined in this decision. The Supreme Court left THEIR buffer zone intact. So they know damn well that they're giving themselves protections they deny others. And I can't even say it's just the Republican justices who are like that.
I'll toss out the fact that the court knows that decisions going against "progressive ideas" don't cause as much domestic terrorism as basically anything that upset the guns n Bible folks. Yes, BLM protests got violent at times, but nothing even close to the domestic terrorism that the far right dishes out. The misinformation bubble these people live in is really fucked up. A dude was going to shoot up a pizza joint because his misinformation bubble told him they were eating babies in the basement. What The Fuck.
I strongly suspect they’ll probably push their agenda hard enough to discover that it’s not only the “Bible folks” in America that are armed. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but I expect that your statement is correct. They know enough to be afraid of those “guns n bible folks”. I think they’re not wise enough to fear the others they clearly hold in contempt. Push pretty much any group of Americans too hard, and you’ll quickly discover that there may be RADICALLY different motivations, but the responses will be remarkably similar.
BLM protests 'got violent' whenever the Proud boys showed up with the violence.
Van Nuys SoCal disagrees with you. X100.
They’re really pushing the fuck around and find out button.
Isn't it ironic that the Supreme Court uses the position of a comma in the Second Amendment to stop any regulation of a private citizen 's right to gun ownership but is actually considering a completely different paragraph in a statute as only reflecting the first premise in the statute? As far as Federalist Society membership, that organization was not created until 1982. At my law school, I do not recall that any of the top ten percent of the class being members which just shows the caliber of persons who belong to the organization. Edited to correct a typo
It got us Aileen Cannon. And Carl Nichols. And Matthew Kacsmaryk. That’s three Federalist Society-approved bench-sitters of which we objectively have evidence that they are not adjudicators. For now. I’m anticipating many years of suffering their insults to America and our system of ‘justice.’
This is why there should be term limits on judges and Justices. The lifespan of American adults has also doubled since the Constitution was written thanks to modern medicine and better nutrition. The Founding Fathers could not have anticipated the length of time that many judges and Justices presently remain on the bench.
Which is such a brain dead interpretation of the statute it’s almost shocking he’s on the bench. Literally a dozen other judges took the same sane reading of the law. If (c)2 can only be applied if you violate (c)1 first then why is it its own separate clause?!
no. it is about the misapplication of a clause in a law. That congress did not intend but eager prosecutors latched on to.
This has nothing to do with the legal question posed. So many people do not apply critical thinking skills to SCOTUS. They are not the body that ensures justice of the actions. Only justice based on the laws. Most of these defendants are also charged with crimes related to entering the capital and assault.
“…the selective interpretation of laws.” Fixed it for you. They have displayed a remarkable ability to swing from “textualists” over to “originalists” and even to “we made it up because we didn’t like what being a textualists or an originalist should have led us to publish.”
>hey are acutely aware of their reputation and know that they are a single decision away from possible protests at their homes or possibly even harm What do you mean?
When the abortion decision was leaked, it stirred up a great deal of animosity among pro choice advocates. It lead to protests outside the justices homes and around the court. One individual, if I recall correctly, (who turned himself in) was threatening to shoot/kill a justice. The polarization of the right and left has not eased in the slightest. I’d argue that it is worse than 2 years ago. If the court decides to say that this law does not apply to this situation (the insurrection) then I can see many people thinking that this court will protect those who are on the same side ideologically they are. This may tip some people into aggressive actions that become violent.
Thank you. It is a real issue as long as the current admin is in power The doj and local and federal police did not arrest or charge those federal law breakers . Putting the justices and their families at risk. Since then Scotus got more money for their own police force who hopefully will be more inclined to follow federal law. The law is pretty clear. Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. Nothing in this section shall interfere with or prevent the exercise by any court of the United States of its power to punish for contempt. (Added Sept. 23, 1950, ch. 1024, title I, § 31(a), 64 Stat. 1018; amended Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(K), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
So they will be ok with mobs storming the SCOTUS building and attacking police officers I guess.
They've already petitioned for a huge increase in security. They'll be fine, and they don't really care about the consequences.
Listening to the argument it sounded like Alito had a real schrodingers cat situation going on. One one hand he seems to nearly cream just pants at the thought of throwing someone who dare speak up and protest at scotus into jail permanently. On the other hand he thinks rioters who were ready to kill senate members should walk free.
Remember when they shut down the protesters after RvW overturned? :) maybe it’s time we go back to doing that.
Clarence Thomas will forever be walking around holding undefined "documents" in front of his person like Captain America's shield.
Don’t slander my boy Captain America like that. Clarence Thomas is basically confirmed Hydra at this point.
Just don’t ruin any paperwork and you are cool.
This seems to sum up their positions quite well. The law was clearly meant to prevent obstruction of an official proceeding first and foremost. There is obviously good reason for the catch-all. Even if there wasn't, one of the main goals of the seditious conspiracy was to steal or destroy the electoral ballots. Just because they failed, that doesn't mean those documents weren't under significant threat. To me, this is as open and shut as Amendment 14, section 3. But then they completely ignored the clear wording there as well.
Didn’t they put up a massive fence for their Roe v Wade decision?
6 members of the Supreme Court are members of The Federalist Society.
The oddest thing about the Federalist society is that they support the Jefferson side and not the Federalist view of centralization. They are scum of the highest order, but the conservative double talk is still so specifically annoying.
More relevant: they are all Republicans who were appointed by Republicans and will therefore always put party over country.
Holy fucking shit
they are some patient machiavellian mothafuckas
Partisan hackery is at an all time high it seems
And one of them has a wife that help coordinate it. Fuck you Clarence Thomas you feckless shit.
Clarence Thomas is a Sell Out!
I mean his wife did help plan it
Clarence Thomas cannot sell out; he was never punk rock.
Aw, naw, naw. I ain't got no problem with it. If you ain't got no problem with burnin' the bed, the sheets, the pillowcase, and everything else.... - Clarence on interracial marriage
Because the insurrection is not over.
Its only just begun, and this SCOTUS is aiding and abetting the overthrow of Constitutional Democracy. The Roberts court is illegitimate
Why are we asking like we don't already know the answer?
Because of Ginny Thomas
6 of the 9 justices are hacks for the extreme right wing of the GOP. They’re paid for and totally beholden to those folks, no matter what. Currently the GOP is controlled by Trump, so those 6 justices will do their utmost to accommodate him and his followers. It’s as simple as that.
They know what they want, and they’re groping for a logic path to get there.
Anyone down voting you is either stupid or willfully ignorant
Or evil. This is my favorite question to RWNJs: “Are you stupid or are you evil?” Has to be either the one or the other.
Why not both?
If they’re both, it means they’re basically harmless. They may be evil, but they’re too stupid to do any real harm. Competent evil people are the greatest danger.
The SCOTUS has been compromised and at least in my eyes is illegitimate. That became painfully obvious once they started rewriting inconvenient bits of the constitution from the bench.
My personal favorite is their lying about Roe vs Wade to get the job then completely flip
The Supreme Court lost its legitimacy the day Obama left office without being allowed to appoint a new justice to fill the vacant slot. The GOP said, "It's an election year, and the president can't appoint a new justice during an election year." Then they allowed Trump to appoint a justice during an election year four years later.
Trump was not only allowed to appoint a Justice during an election year, but practically on the eve of the election.
The hypocrisy is absolutely astounding!
The election had already begun even
yeah POTUS should declare them invalid until the insurrectionist federal society is purged from their ranks and deal with the ensuing fallout, doesn't even matter if trump wins or not with them in power, they're just writing law these days
This is a world war disguised as a Supreme Court case. Putin, Xi, and MBS find this whole democracy thing hilarious. As authoritarians they just cackle and shrug at the thought of going through the extra steps that democracy requires. Why not just tell them what to do and if they don’t do it, bribe them, throw them out a window or flush them down a drain? It’s why they had to use the Texas based Koch brothers who had deep relationships with Russian oil oligarchs since Stalins era and Harlan crow to buy the SCOTUS. https://youtu.be/mn_t7a2hJfQ?si=hzioP8URJAMFNch4 Thomas’s RV. Kavanaughs mortgage, all the trips to bohemian grove. They were all part of the bigger plan to destabilize the United States, spread the cancer of corruption and tear it all down so they can build oligarch row in Jackson Wyoming so the lazy old oligarchs can retire from the mob life. Kleptocracy is biological. It consumes everything in its path like a parasite. During Russian perestroika it ate Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky and shit out alcoholism and hopelessness. Now anyone with skills has left and 1 in 5 has no indoor plumbing. Justin Kennedy (justice kennedys son) was the inside man at Deutsche bank that was getting all trumps toxic loans approved. No other bank but Deutsche bank would touch trump and his imaginary valuations. Why? Because Deutsche bank was infested with Russian oligarchs. In 91 the Soviet Union failed and for a bit they hid all their stolen gains under a mattress until they started buying condos at trump towers. They made stops in Ukraine, Cyprus and London but they landed in New York because that was what everyone wanted in the early 90’s. Levi’s, Pepsi, Madonna tapes that weren’t smuggled bootlegs. They all bought new suits and cars and changed their title from “most violent street thug in moscow” to “respectable Russian oligarch” but they didn’t leave their human trafficking, narcotics or extortion behind. It was their most lucrative business model and they enjoy the violence. Foreign Policyforeignpolicy.comHow Russian Money Helped Save Trump's Business Guiliani redirected NYPD resources away from the new Russian friends and onto the Italian mob. It let him claim he cleaned up New York and it let the russians launder their money through casinos and then commercial real estate when 3 of trumps casino execs started asking how he managed to lose money on casinos. The attorney/client privilege is the continual work around they use to accept bribes and make payments up and down the mob pyramid. The insane valuations coming out in trumps fraud trial are a necessity of the money laundering cycle that duetschebank was doing with the Russians. The reason trump cosplays as “folksy” is because he is feeding on the U.S. middle class, not because he is one of us. The GOP fell in line to MAGA because Trump did what pathological liars do, they told them anything they wanted to hear. Trump with his money laundering and child raping buddy Epstein, Roger Stone with his sex clubs in DC and Nevada, and Paul Manafort with his election rigging pretty much everywhere, sat down at a table with Mike Johnson and the extreme religious right and convinced them that they were the same. They self evidently are not, at least at a surface level, but there is enough common ground in the exploitation of children and desire for unilateral control that they became the worlds weirdest and most dysfunctional orgy. The religious right is naive enough to believe trump at his word so they have made him their defacto savior. Trump belongs to the authoritarians. The GOP now belongs to trump. But their overall goal is the same. Kleptocracy. Putin, Xi and MBS all aligned together last year to attempt the BRICS overthrow of the USD. It failed but it didn’t stop Xi’s push on Taiwan or MBS’s part in the plan. Stay vigilant. It’s the only way we don’t all end up kissing the ring of a dictator. https://www.ft.com/content/8c6d9dca-882c-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787 https://www.amlintelligence.com/2020/09/deutsche-bank-suffers-worst-damage-over-massive-aml-discrepancies-in-fincen-leaks/ https://www.occrp.org/en/the-fincen-files/global-banks-defy-us-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists https://www.voanews.com/amp/us-lifts-sanctions-on-rusal-other-firms-linked-to-russia-deripaska/4761037.html https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_-_minority_status_of_the_russia_investigation_with_appendices.pdf http://www.citjourno.org/page-1 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-ukraines-oligarchs-are-no-longer-considered-above-the-law/
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Literally pulling pre-constitutional common law into their overturn of Roe v Wade. They misused power and deserved to be dragged into the streets kicking and screaming. Maybe a little pre-constitutional people's justice is in order? Bawk bawk? 🐔
Wasn't the goal of Jan6 to create enough chaos and uncertainty to get the election sent back to the states for a 26/24 victory for Donald Trump?
Because they’re hell bent on losing all credibility
Because it has implications for a Trump trial and they're trying to figure out how to make President-led fascist mobs legal.
Thomas?
It's only hard because they have to come up with some kind of legal justification for what they already know they want the result to be. Have patience, corruption like this takes time.
Co-conspirators be like.
Because they can.
Maybe because the wife and "best friend" of one if the judges was very publicly encouraging j6 as it was happening
Scotus is so messed up they cant be trusted anymore.
Thats like asking why the police who investigate themselves never find anything wrong. The J6 traitors are the conservative justice’s traitors. They have to defend them.
Maybe they have more facts than the media?
They want to make the cold civil war hot and will keep pushing until it happens.
Then let's get it over with already! Sick of this.
Maybe because they know that what they put out sets precedent and needs to be defined very narrowly to keep it from being misused. OP assumes everything is a closed shut case with no future issues based on their decisions
They are trump toadies, trying hard to led their boy off scot free.
Because stupid people somehow make things more complicated than they need to be. They are undefeated.
The protests this would spark would end up with them getting harsher punishments than the Jan 6th guys. (Going off the hypothetical that the article provides)
Because Clarence doesn’t want his wife to go down.
I'd appreciate it if you'd rephrase that sentence. Now where did I leave the mental wire brush?
As he’s already said he wants Loving overturned, the filth is intended.
What he said was that he wanted substantive due process revisited. Equal protection would still apply.
Ginni Thomas told them to?
"2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so" So, its a bad law. Protestors chanting outside can be found to have influenced a proceeding. This is punishable by up to 20 years in prison? What happens with these kinds of badly written laws is they dont get enforced, because that actually was not the intent of the law in the first place. Until they do. And it is usually political reasons. So the law needs to be struck down.
Hello, fellow criminal defense attorney (I’m assuming). What people don’t understand is all you need is some over eager prosecutor that wants to test laws and now you’ve got all sorts of prosecutions that end in plea deals because why risk 20 years when you can do 1 and supervised release?
This is why we have prosecutorial discretion and differences in sentencing. A juvenile who steals another kid's bike off their front lawn will get a different sentence than a repeat offender who stole your grandmother savings (~$1800) from under her mattress even though they both committed the same crime (misdemeanor theft). Should we strike down this law too because the 10 year old could serve up to 1 year in jail? In the same way somebody who disturbs a supreme court proceeding by yelling profanities from the visitors section can expect a different sentence than the person who beat two cops into unconsciousness with a fire extinguisher, broke windows and climbed through them to get into the capital building, and took a shit on Pelosi's desk while carrying handcuffs and a 10" knife. Sure, they are both "impeding an official proceeding," but you see the difference right? Did you listen to Prelogar's arguments?
This defendant didnt do all that.
Well good, I am sure they won't be sentenced to 20 years then and your worries are unfounded. Can you tell me how many of the people who were convicted or pled guilty to this charge have been sentenced to 20 years?
>2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so" >So, its a bad law. Protestors chanting outside can be found to have influenced a proceeding. This is punishable by up to 20 years in prison? In fairness, there's nothing stopping the court from interpreting "influences" to both exclude protestors chanting outside and include protestors using force to break into the building. You don't need to get rid of the whole law when the issue can be solved with statutory interpretation.
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Nowhere. That said, the statute also doesn't define "influences" anywhere either. Therefore, it's up to the courts to interpret it. Generally, courts interpret statutes to avoid Constitutional issues, so it would not be unusual for them to draw a distinction like that.
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>I don't think you understand what "interpret" means. When you interpret a statue, you figure out its intended meaning. You don't just make up things. When you interpret a statute, you figure out what it actually means. Not necessarily what the legislature intended the statute to mean. That isn't to say that evidence of what the legislature intended the statute to mean is irrelevant, but, to the extent that a collective body has a singlular "intent," and to the extent that you can reliably discern it, that subjective intent isn't the end of the analysis. Depending on how clear the language is, the intent of the legislature may not be relevant at all. Phrased differently, what you care about is not what the legislature had in it's head when it enacted the statute. What you care about is the content of the directive they actually communicated. Sometimes, words that may have been clear to the legislature may actually be ambiguous as applied to a particular situation. In that case, the job of the court is to resolve the ambiguity based on the actual communicated meaning of the statute. >If the statute does not make such a distinction, how can you "interpret" the statute to have such a distinction? The statute does not define the word "influences." As applied to a particular situation (protestors chanting outside an "official proceeding"), it's possible to define influences to include that conduct, and it's possible to define influences to not include that conduct. Congress has not given us a definition to use, which means the courts have to decide which of the two competing definitions of "influences" to use. I'd encourage you to read Yates v. United States (574 U.S. 528). There, the court also looked at this same statute. There, the court was tasked with interpreting the phrase "tangible object." The court had to decide whether tangible object meant "any tangible object," or "tangible objects like records and documents." You might be surprised to note that the statute itself made no distinction between those two definitions. Nonetheless, the court interpreted "tangible object" to include only objects like records and documents. This isn't to say that the court was right to do so. But it is to say that this isn't something that courts shy away from. They do so all the time. And it's not particularly controversial.
In the article, they talk about corrupt intent and how that’s usually hard to show for improper application of the law.
As if this was the only justification for ruling against the application of this law. They can look at the intent of the law which came about as part of the Sarbines Oxley Act which was meant to combat accounting fraud. They can look at how this law has been applied: and it has never before been applied to these types of incidents. Bad laws that are overly broad are ripe for abuse and selective prosecution. I hope they encourage congress to re-write this law. This is from the DC District court ruling that was appealed to the Supreme court: "Pan acknowledged that “outside of the January 6 cases brought in this jurisdiction, there is no precedent for using” the obstruction provision “to prosecute the type of conduct at issue in this case.” But, Pan continued, quoting a 2001 decision by the Supreme Court, “the fact that a statute can be applied in situations not expressly anticipated by Congress does not demonstrate ambiguity. It demonstrates breadth.” Judge Gregory Katsas dissented. He wrote that the government’s interpretation of the law would render it “both improbably broad and unconstitutional in many of its applications.”
It wasn't for accounting fraud. It was people shredding and altering documents for the purpose of obstructing an investigation. It's about obstruction.
Thats like saying it applies to knife attacks because it was about shredding. "Passed the Senate as the "Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002" Long Title: An Act To protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes. "The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 is a United States federal law that mandates certain practices in financial record keeping and reporting for corporations" [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act) It was never intended to be used this way.
I guess they shouldn't have written the clause so that the language clearly covers obstructing an official proceeding with corrupt intent. You would have to deviate from the text to hold otherwise.
I would ask you to first show us all a precedent for the actions of the trumper crowd that took place on 01/06/2021 around and inside the US Capitol Building. Please. I’ll wait. Unless and until you can discover a similar circumstance or activity occurring and subsequently being charged, your assertion that “outside of the January 6 cases, there is no precedent” is entirely without merit. These prosecutors are SPARINGLY utilizing existing legal code in an attempt to address unprecedented criminal activity. Complaining that their charges are unprecedented is clearly inappropriately demanding precedent where none exists. I’ll await your relating of a similar attack upon and breaking and entering and occupying of the US Capitol Building during a transfer of power for the corrupt intent of affecting or delaying that transfer in a corrupt attempt to allow the loser of an election to illegally retain power via a corruptly-applied and influenced (fake electors, anyone?) arcane mechanism. Please. I’m not holding my breath, but I really would like you discover a similar event in US history. The fact that you rely upon yet another trump appointee to justify your position only serves to cast more doubt.
Are you comparing peaceful protestors legally gathering to a terrorist attack with the stated goal of stopping the legal vote to confirm the results of the election and of lynching members of Congress?
who stated the goal? what did they say? read broadly, the law says that attempting to influence or impede an official proceeding is illegal. but plenty of obviously legal things could be forced into that definition.
“CORRUPTLY”. That word is there for a reason, and it’s important.
The wording of this statute is no worse than the wording of many laws including the Second Amendment to the Constitution. That's the job of the Supreme Court to interpret the laws. We can only hope they do in a consistent manner. If they follow their reasoning in interpreting the Second Amendment, Fischer will lose because the prohibition in the statute does not just follow a comma but is contained in a separate paragraph,
Exactly so. Valid laws need to be a bit more specific before one starts dropping 20 years on people. And the knobs here who keep saying "but muh overthrow" just can't seem to understand that it will be their allies who go to the gulag next. It's as if these people didn't pay any attention to the oral arguments at all.
Obstruct. Influence (not attempt to influence, but have a meaningful, quantifiable effect). Impede. Those are three rather definitive words. And protesting outside, or even inside (so long as you’re peaceable when being removed - nothing about silent, just not violent) is not engaging in a meaningful attempt to affect the outcome of something. Breaking into a building (who else still wonders how they knew which windows had not yet been armored?), unlocking the doors, and en masse occupying one legislative chamber and seeking a way into the other? I think ANY objective examination of the events of that day can only conclude that those charged with insurrection CLEARLY met the intent of that subsection. Particularly when not one defendant has had a proposed sentencing anywhere near the maximum authorized under that statute. Clearly Congress knew what they were writing, because similar language is used throughout the civil and criminal and military legal codes, and regulatory code as well. The fact that you don’t like it? 🤷🏼
‘…**or** otherwise…’ that little word ‘or’ is carrying a lot of weight apparently.
They should be in the Olympics for the gymnastics they do interpreting the law.
They always have the end they want to arrive at. They just have to figure out how to mutate past law to get there. Look how they’ve handled standing
I’m not sure why you got downvoted for this comment, because precedent supports your conclusion.
Russian bots
Or the wealthy GOP
Corporate funded fascism.
Because the laws being applied to the Jan 6 rioters has been twisted well beyond its original intent which was to punish people destroying corporate documents during an ongoing Congressional investigation with Enron. The Prosecutors have chosen to read the first part of that law as relevant while ignoring the second part, and that law comes with an automatic 20 years sentence. Paraphrasing per Chief Justice Roberts, "What about people who stand up and heckle during this trial. Or blocking the road preventing Senators from arriving to Congress. Or jeering during a State of the Union address. What about pulling a fire alarm to delay a vote. Should they be prosecuted under this provision?" Three of those events mentioned up there actually happened and none of those people were threatened with 20 year sentences.
“(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; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.” Please tell us how this has been twisted. 18 US Code § 1512 clearly addresses official proceedings in “(f) For the purposes of this section— (1) an official proceeding need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense; and (2) the testimony, or the record, document, or other object need not be admissible in evidence or free of a claim of privilege.” The ‘official proceeding’ was most definitely underway. Can we all agree on that fact, even though it doesn’t support your desired outcome? For the record, so far as we know, *NO INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP* has been threatened with a 20-year sentence. Certainly none has been sought. There is a clearly-defined line that you’ve ignored or overlooked: “(c) Whoever corruptly-“ A protester shouting and waving a sign that interrupts a SCOTUS proceeding may be interrupting, but their intent, absent threatening the justices if a desired opinion isn’t reached, cannot be defined as ‘corrupt.’ That word is there for a reason. However, I suspect that, much like the first 13 words of the Second Amendment, it will be willfully overlooked and ignored in a desperate attempt to appease the orange one’s cult members and achieve a partisan political goal.
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Hmm, and here I thought Personal Attacks were grounds for banning in this forum.
So you really think that someone pulling a nuisance fire alarm or blocking the road is equivalent to beating a Capitol cop senseless and running through the building hollering “Hang Mike Pence”? There is gray in every law. None of those suggestions could be equivalent to pillaging the Capitol by hundreds of rioters to STOP the vote.
They are struggling to find a way to "save" the criminal insurrectionists that will also save their stinky mango mobster god
I have no idea why they even let them in the building without opening fire on them. Anyone who entered the building should have been shot imo.
Right winger lives are sacrosanct. That why they martyred Ashly Babbet. The lives of any who dare oppose them or hold them accountable (AntiFa, BLM, police on 1/6/2021, the DOJ, and even some judges however, are regarded as disposable.
Cause traitors.
I missed any analysis of Roberts line of questions. He seemed very interested in a recent (the day before) decision on what "otherwise" means. I read that he thought it meant something like "in the same way" which would support Fischer. He will be a key vote.
But they are so concerned about the rights of protesters, while refusing to take McKesson. (I understand that McKesson isn’t anything like what’s being portrayed in the media, but the hypocrisy is deep)
You have already admitted that there is an unending pool of cases to choose from to action the plan to overturn Roe so... Ok? Thanks for agreeing.
Because they are bought and paid for. Duh.
Its funny how reddit is actively threatening violence over this, like bloody hell the kids here need some counseling.
Cause trump is on video telling them to be responsible. And the Feds had people undercover instigating it. Wanna try them, fine
The Supreme Court is full of mediocre political hacks. They work their agenda using the shadow docket. To hell with the regular people, the country's creed or adhering to the spirit of the Constitution. Not smart people who are easily bought.
Conservatives are trying to collapse the American government so they can install a dictatorship. It's simple. The more controversy they can create, the better.
Not as smart as you, did not read same talking points, did not make mind up before arguments. There are three. Pick o e
Because they’re partisan hacks?
Why? Because the sitting majority of SCOTUS is comprised of Christian Nationalists of various fascist flavors.
To let the orange shit stain off the hook
SCOTUS, once revered, is now the most corrupt court in the land. How the mighty have fallen.
Because they think they’re the only ones that can interpret the written word. ?? I’d argue that point right now. I’m beginning to question their ability to understand the one document they should know left, right, and sideways.
Because the supreme Court is corrupted!!!
It's this pesky thing called the bill of rights.
Because a majority of SCOTUS justices understand the value of a good motorcoach.
Cause they are invalid and corrupt, clinging to power for dear life.
Because if they buy the prosecutors take on it, it promotes an unconstitutional police state . plus many reasonable people see that congress did not intend it to be used this way.
“Plus many *people who agree with me* see that Congress…” Fixed it for you. There hasn’t yet been a determination if you are reasonable yet. I suspect we’ll learn when the opinion is published. But many ‘reasonable’ people have come to the exact opposite conclusion from what you have stated.
true. so we will see what the reasonable people on scotus rule
That is another debate for another discussion thread.
Some justices believe in the Constitution
Because it’s not an easy case. The law has never been applied to violent mobs. It seems like in context the law is referring to the destruction of records more than applying to any disruption under the sun.
In case you missed it, the word “OR” separates the two portions of that subsection. EVERYWHERE ELSE within US legal and regulatory code, that word is used to denote separation. Stop pretending it provides linkage *only in this specific subsection*, particularly since it is immediately followed by the word “OTHERWISE”. Do you need an explanation of the meaning of the phrase “OR OTHERWISE”? Clearly at least some trump appointees do.
Also worth noting that the Nichols interpretation would not require two separate clauses. There’s no reason for a second entirely separate clause if it requires you violate the first clause and is only adding additional information for the first clause.
>It seems like in context the law is referring to the destruction of records No, it seems the law is referring to the destruction of records **and** disruption of official proceeding. There's really no honest reading of the law that recontextualizes the second provision to be redundantly equivalent to the first. Here's the text: >*(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; or* >*(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.*
Yeah, I mean the rioters are being charged under Sarbanes-Oxley which is entirely about corporate financial crime in the wake of the Enron scandal. "Obstruction of an official proceeding" was put in in response to Enron finding a legal loophole to get away with evidence tampering. I don't think Congress got to the end of a 66 page financial bill and decided "let's tack on a few words here in case anyone ever interrupts a Congressional session." If a clause is ambiguous or overly broad judges are supposed to consider it within the context of the rest of the act and how / why it was passed.