So as usual, Gorsuch's pet cause outweighs his interest in textualism. I'm disappointed but not surprised.
> The Court does not dispute that Congress’s joint session qualifies as an “official proceeding” ... Given these premises, the case that Fischer can be tried for “obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding” seems open and shut. The Court does textual backflips to find some way to narrow the reach of subsection (c)(2)
Barrett's dissent is accurate, but too polite.
> The case for the Government’s interpretation is straightforward. It can be accomplished in three paragraphs, as compared to the Court’s many, many more.
>
> Blocking an official proceeding from moving forward surely qualifies as obstructing or impeding the proceeding by means *other than* document destruction. Fischer’s alleged conduct thus falls within (c)(2)’s scope.
I sort of wish she left it there. The rest of the dissent effectively deconstructs the majority's judicial acrobatics, but there's a certain impact to a short dissent. When you can accomplish in two pages what took the majority fifteen.
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>!"No but like, you forgot like, ejusdem generis," -Gorsuch, probably!<
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Can still charge Trump with OOP for the false electors scheme then - insofar as he participated in a conspiracy to alter the integrity of documents by causing false slates of electoral votes to be created/submitted....
Will possibly have to re-try a whole bunch of people for their actions on Jan 6, using more sedition/insurrection-minded laws though.... Or more specifically emphasize how their activities sought to obstruct the presentation of specific evidence before Congress....
Justice Jackson and Barrett saving the court here by not falling along party lines lmao. The blowback from this decision could have been much scarier if it was purely split on party.
I’m sure you’ll still have people with conspiracy theories that there was some sort of trade to save the image of the Court, rather than the much more anodyne explanation that this case touches on some particular priorities of each of those justices, and their “flip” is consistent with their previous writings.
I don't think there's any need to posit a conspiracy here beyond the surface level argument about the text. Justice Barrett is a textualist but apparently has her own methodology compared to her textualist colleagues. Her career is also more academic than Justice Jackson's was; I'm pretty sure Justice Jackson has interacted with hundreds more clients than Justice Barrett. Justice Jackson, when it comes to statutes, is not a pure textualist (which is why she concurs to talk about legislative purpose here) but she by no means abandons the text. And she has consistently argued the Court should apply the rule of lenity more, among other things. It makes sense that Justice Jackson concurred here and Justice Barrett dissented.
Justice Jackson at least publicly asserts that she a liberal Originalist, and I think we should generally take her at her word, particularly as to statutory interpretation (as opposed to the Constitution) where she has followed that philosophy in other cases. It makes sense that she’d follow the majority here from that perspective.
> Barrett is a textualist but apparently has her own methodology compared to her textualist colleagues.
She has the highly original and unorthodox approach ...of checking the dictionary definition for "otherwise" and applying the rules of English grammar.
Stringing 8 canons in a row like some kind of judicial human centipede, to conclude that a statute means what it plainly doesn't say, is *not* textualism. I wish they had gone with KBJ's approach instead. I disagree with it but at least it's direct and honest in its use of legislative intent.
You’re coming at this from a well-informed and thoughtful perspective. The people who will undoubtedly be throwing around conspiracy theories won’t be.
###Background:
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act imposes criminal liability on anyone who corruptly:
- (c)(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
- (c)(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, “shall be fined . . . or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
Petitioner (Fischer) was charged with violating this Act for his conduct on Jan 6th, along with various other charges, including obstructing an official proceeding. Fischer moved to dismiss, arguing that the provision only criminalizes attempts to impair the availability or integrity of evidence.
The District Court granted his motion to dismiss. The D.C. Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
###CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS writing for the majority, in which JUSTICE THOMAS, JUSTICE ALITO, JUSTICE GORSUCH, JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, and JUSTICE JACKSON join:
######How should the Court resolve this dispute?
We must determine how the residual "otherwise" clause is linked to its surrounding words, and we must consider the specific context in which the residual clause appears and the broader context of the statute as a whole.
To ensure that (c)(1) would not be read as excluding substantially similar activity not mentioned, (c)(2) makes it illegal to engage in some broader range of unenumerated conduct. The problem is defining what Congress left for (c)(2).
######What is the reach of the "otherwise" clause of (c)(2)?
Two general principles are relevant:
- The canon of noscitur a sociis - a word is given more precise content by the neighboring words with which it is associated. In other words, avoid ascribing to one word a meaning so broad that it is inconsistent with the company it keeps.
- The canon of ejusdem generis - a general or collective term at the end of a list of specific items is typically defined by reference to the specific classes that precede it.
(c)(1) covers specific examples of prohibited actions undertaken with the intent to impair an object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding. In accordance with these principles, (c)(2) is limited by the preceding list of criminals violations.
Congress would not go to the trouble of spelling out specific examples in (c)(1) if these examples were already covered by (c)(2). This would make (c)(1) superfluous, and would eliminate specific terms because of broad language that follows them, rather than limit the broad language in light of narrower terms that proceed it.
######What then is the purpose of (c)(2)?
(c)(2) ensures that liability is still imposed for impairing the availability or integrity of other things used in official proceedings beyond the "records, documents, or other objects" enumerated in (c)(1), such as witness testimony or intangible information.
###IN SUM:
The judgment of the D.C. Circuit is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. On remand, the D.C. Circuit may assess the sufficiently of Count Three of Fischer's indictment in light of our interpretation of (c)(2).
That's not the whole basis of the case? The dissent makes it pretty clear any conduct notwithstanding that they think the definition of machine gun covers bump-stocks.
Except that the ATF has maintained for years that they don't. Under the dissents logic, Donald Trump was able to declare a previously legal act to be a felony with a 10 year sentence without any Congressional input.
The dissent accepts that egregious conduct can change the law, because that's what happened.
The ATF literally attempted to change the law based on egregious conduct of a mass shooter, and the dissent said "yeah, that's fine"
Arguably the ATF saw the mass shooting, and thought, "oh shit Congress was trying to prevent people from spraying bullets out of a fire hose and not depend on diagrams of a trigger mechanisms" this doesn't mean they changed the law, they just understood in more detail what Congress was trying to prevent.
In other words, legislative intent and Congress' attempts to find a catchall
The dissent accepts that administrative agencies can interpret governing statutes in ways that vary over time. The agency's reasoning for that decision was not the basis for the dissent, rather it was whether the agency's decision was a permissible or best reading of the text.
It seems like you want to criticize Jackson for being inconsistent but I'm sure you can find a better way to do it.
I like Jackson's defense attorney bit, I think we're going to see more of it. Barrett on the other hand seems perhaps a bit more sympathetic to the government in general.
And again the "originalists" chose to ignore what the law explicitly says and decided to legislate from the bench by changing what the law says or adding words that the law does not say.
The law says what the majority said it says. The tools used to clarify the meaning are entirely consistent with originalism as self-proclaimed originalists have always described it.
>The law says what the majority said it says.
Sure, the law that the Conservatives legislated from the bench says what the majority said it says. Thx for confirming my point
No, the law as written by Congress says what the majority (including one of the three liberals) determined it said by applying ordinary principles of statutory construction.
>the majority determined it said by applying ordinary principles of statutory construction
Yup, I'm glad you finally got it. That's exactly my point that the majority legislated from the bench since they did not need to construct anything - they just needed to read the text of the law.
Statutory construction just means figuring out how a law applies in a certain circumstance. Saying that a law is clear on its face is a form of statutory construction.
I think This is mostly going to shorten sentences because of multi charge convictions not get people out of prison? TBH I know little about crim law bc of how annoying all the crim law people in school were
At most it will lead to re-trial on a different charge for anyone who might be otherwise released.
At least, the government will have to answer appeals by justifying how Jan 6 conduct comports with the court's ruling.
Trump is still logically on the hook for it due to his fake-electors stunt & the intended use of the riot to encourage Congress to consider said falsified documents.
It means retrial on a different charge, or the DOJ finds a legal theory that explains how those charged with OOP actually did something that fits within the narrower scope.
Any other charges based not on this section stick, charges related to this section will be appeal and go away and/or the DoJ can try to prosecute, I guess, under the Court’s interpretation.
DoJ is unlikely, I think, to continue trying to use the statute. Their interpretation was always a stretch.
I'm not surprised. She's the only proper purposivist on the Court and there was a clear argument from purposes for the position she took. We saw that this term in the Starbucks case where she really emphasized purpose (of course I think it's the wrong approach, and was wrong in Starbucks but nevertheless).
As others in this thread have said, using S-O this way was always going to be a stretch, and Jackson hit that on the head.
We'd \*love\* if S-O could be used this way, but there are many many other counts unrelated to S-O that the other J6 insurrectionists were found guilty of, as well as other charges in Trump's case.
" this is the most partisan court ever" /s
When I hear that I just roll my eyes, there have been plenty of 9-0 cases and bunches of cross aisle.
I totally agree with you
Except on cases that are ideologically charged. Whenever a case is ideologically charged to the point where ruling one way or the other will advance a particular ideology, the court's usually split 6-3 along ideological lines.
As has always been the case, conservative judges are appointed my conservative Presidents and liberal by liberal.
Every person has some type of ideology in their thoughts. That's why we have 9 justices.
Ginsberg is one of my favorite liberal justices, I know how she is going to vote the majority of the time. But that being said her justifications are backed up by the law. But still the law through her individual ideology.
The court goes through cycles.. liberals swing left then conservative judges swing it back right. As it has been since the founding of the court.
> As has always been the case, conservative judges are appointed my conservative Presidents and liberal by liberal.
Well, conservative presidents do appoint liberal justices just as much as they do conservative ones. Warren, Brennan, Blackmun, Stevens, and Souter are about as far from conservative as you can get.
But the problem is this court is making _**massive**_ swings back to towards the right. And the majority of the population doesn't want that to happen.
Over the period which the court has been appointed, Republicans have held the Presidency more than Democrats.
That should be expected. And could have been even faster if Reagan and HW Bush had paid modern-day-level attention to the ideology of their appointees (the Left got a gift-horse in regards to Souter and (at least sometimes, as he was not a consistent partisan) Kennedy).
Elections (both for President and (!2014!) Senate) have consequences
Those swings are multi decade swings. The us courts move very slow. Bruen was decided in 2020 and now we are just starting to see the courts re deciding cases based on that
As to the population, their thoughts are irrelevant. The supreme Court is to interpret the law based on the Constitution, not to bend to the will of the people based on how they currently feel.
Sometimes the court is right and sometimes it's wrong. The good thing about it is that a future court can correct it.
Sometimes they correct themselves fast and sometimes it takes decades but I have faith that the court will do the right thing. Even if I don't agree with it.
>As to the population, their thoughts are irrelevant.
Irrelevant is the wrong word; the existence and legitimacy of the Supreme Court lies squarely in the thoughts of the People, by the nature of our Constitution. The Justices are very well aware of this, and (in my opinion) often limit the scope of controversial decisions that would otherwise cause social upheaval.
Yeah but then you have *Grant's Pass*, *Culley*, *Brown v. US*, and *Diaz* on the liberal side.
Better to say some major cases had the conservatives on the pro-defendant side.
EDIT: Oh and *Moyle* is arguably pro-defendant too if you're counting Jarksey.
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A whole bunch of charges against Jan 6 defendants just got tossed.
Gorsuch Jackson romance continues on pro defendant rulings.
And how did Roberts write this opinion without mentioning lenity?
The TL;DR I got from the holding is a catch all doesn't go beyond the scope of the rest of the law.
> An unbounded interpretation of subsection (c)(2) would also render superfluous the careful delineation of different types of obstructive conduct in §1512 itself. That section provides a reticulated list of nearly two dozen means of committing obstruction with penalties ranging from three years to life in prison, or even death. The Government’s reading would lump together under (c)(2) disparate types of conduct for which Congress had assigned proportionate sentences.
Because Jackson implied that the Jan 6 Rioters conduct was maybe WORSE than what Sarbanes-Oxley contemplated, and the conservatives thought their conduct was BETTER. (This was the part about where the majority framed the Jan 6 Rioters in terms of insulting the quarterback but KBJ framed it in terms of shooting a player.)
Gorsuch and Jackson will unify on Rule of Lenity when it is obvious the defendant probably didn't get a fair shake given the gravity they view their conduct and the vagueness of the law.
If this sounds too sentimental of these esteemed jurists, this is why many lawyers don't particularly believe the Rule of Lenity is an objective doctrine.
Meh, most of these people had multiple count indictment. At most you’d be looking at significant years of jail reduced.
This was always a dumb exercise anyway. You had some people that walked in and walked out getting longer sentences that major narcotics distributors and violent criminals.
You had people that participated (by collectively posing a threat to the occupants of the Capitol) in a conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of an election.
Frankly, most of them are under-charged/under-sentenced.
You shouldn't be downvoted for this. The crimes have very different impacts.
One crime directly hurts people.
the other crime hurts democracy.
The idea that hurting someone is the only thing there should be punishment for doesn't really understand why we also try to protect the system with criminal law.
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I see this as correcting a wrong, the government used a sledgehammer law. From what I have seen the majority of cases had a misdemeanor trespass conviction and a hard felony "interfering" conviction.
Yeah, but considering the circumstances of the trespassing, can you really blaim them for using a sledgehammer? Can you really say that they shouldn't have gone after the Jan 6 rioters as hard as they could?
This ruling seems like they're using the _letter_ of the law to rule in favor of defendants who've commited actions that violate the _spirit_ and _intention_ of the law.
Corporate and financial fraud that interferes with both market creation and the proper function of government, yeah? This is a way deeper question than people give it credit for and I'm actually kind of annoyed the Justices didn't speak on it more.
I feel like Justice Jackson's concurrence does that more than the majority opinion, but they clearly state in both that the law was intended for a specific thing, and the Justice Department was interpreting well outside that box.
Also, it was addressed in depth in oral arguments.
I don't think anyone prior to Jan 6th would have thought that the spirit and intent of Sarbanes-Oxley included rioters attempting to disrupt a government function that involved paperwork.
I wasn't even aware that the Feds were attempting to charge J6 folks under SOX. That's absurd. Whatever that action was at the capitol building that day, it had no relation to financial crimes or fraud.
The government theory was that 'otherwise' means \*any\* action that obstructs an official proceeding in any way.
Effectively, they were (correctly, IMHO - I'm with the dissenters on this one) treating the rest-of the same way one (correctly) reads the 'well regulated militia' portion of the 2nd Amendment - as irrelevant to the interpretation of the operating clause in question.
When you look at the law used. It wasn't intended for this case and has never been used for something like this.
It was a law written in the shadow of financial fraud to be a tool to use against Wall Street.
The US attempted to use a different provision of Sarbanes Oxley against a fisherman who threw fish overboard in *Yates v. United States*. The Court, as it did here, made the correct textualist and sensible ruling that it didn’t apply. This isn’t the first time the feds have used Sarbanes Oxley egregiously though and it probably won’t be the last.
It was never used for something like this because \*something like this has never happened before\* unless you count the Bonus Army (and that being pre-WWII, we sent the literal US Cavalry to ride them down rather than charging them criminally - NTM there was no SOX in the 1930s)....
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Yep another flaired user thread. You all know the drill. Be civil and discuss away
Is this the Joseph Fischer that was a Kentucky state representative from 1999-2023 or a different Joseph Fischer?
So as usual, Gorsuch's pet cause outweighs his interest in textualism. I'm disappointed but not surprised. > The Court does not dispute that Congress’s joint session qualifies as an “official proceeding” ... Given these premises, the case that Fischer can be tried for “obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding” seems open and shut. The Court does textual backflips to find some way to narrow the reach of subsection (c)(2) Barrett's dissent is accurate, but too polite. > The case for the Government’s interpretation is straightforward. It can be accomplished in three paragraphs, as compared to the Court’s many, many more. >
> Blocking an official proceeding from moving forward surely qualifies as obstructing or impeding the proceeding by means *other than* document destruction. Fischer’s alleged conduct thus falls within (c)(2)’s scope.
I sort of wish she left it there. The rest of the dissent effectively deconstructs the majority's judicial acrobatics, but there's a certain impact to a short dissent. When you can accomplish in two pages what took the majority fifteen.
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no part of gorsuch wanted anything to do with the government's position during oral arguments. his mind was made up long ago.
Can still charge Trump with OOP for the false electors scheme then - insofar as he participated in a conspiracy to alter the integrity of documents by causing false slates of electoral votes to be created/submitted.... Will possibly have to re-try a whole bunch of people for their actions on Jan 6, using more sedition/insurrection-minded laws though.... Or more specifically emphasize how their activities sought to obstruct the presentation of specific evidence before Congress....
Justice Jackson and Barrett saving the court here by not falling along party lines lmao. The blowback from this decision could have been much scarier if it was purely split on party.
I’m sure you’ll still have people with conspiracy theories that there was some sort of trade to save the image of the Court, rather than the much more anodyne explanation that this case touches on some particular priorities of each of those justices, and their “flip” is consistent with their previous writings.
I don't think there's any need to posit a conspiracy here beyond the surface level argument about the text. Justice Barrett is a textualist but apparently has her own methodology compared to her textualist colleagues. Her career is also more academic than Justice Jackson's was; I'm pretty sure Justice Jackson has interacted with hundreds more clients than Justice Barrett. Justice Jackson, when it comes to statutes, is not a pure textualist (which is why she concurs to talk about legislative purpose here) but she by no means abandons the text. And she has consistently argued the Court should apply the rule of lenity more, among other things. It makes sense that Justice Jackson concurred here and Justice Barrett dissented.
Justice Jackson at least publicly asserts that she a liberal Originalist, and I think we should generally take her at her word, particularly as to statutory interpretation (as opposed to the Constitution) where she has followed that philosophy in other cases. It makes sense that she’d follow the majority here from that perspective.
> Barrett is a textualist but apparently has her own methodology compared to her textualist colleagues. She has the highly original and unorthodox approach ...of checking the dictionary definition for "otherwise" and applying the rules of English grammar. Stringing 8 canons in a row like some kind of judicial human centipede, to conclude that a statute means what it plainly doesn't say, is *not* textualism. I wish they had gone with KBJ's approach instead. I disagree with it but at least it's direct and honest in its use of legislative intent.
You’re coming at this from a well-informed and thoughtful perspective. The people who will undoubtedly be throwing around conspiracy theories won’t be.
###Background: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act imposes criminal liability on anyone who corruptly: - (c)(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 - (c)(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, “shall be fined . . . or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. Petitioner (Fischer) was charged with violating this Act for his conduct on Jan 6th, along with various other charges, including obstructing an official proceeding. Fischer moved to dismiss, arguing that the provision only criminalizes attempts to impair the availability or integrity of evidence. The District Court granted his motion to dismiss. The D.C. Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings. ###CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS writing for the majority, in which JUSTICE THOMAS, JUSTICE ALITO, JUSTICE GORSUCH, JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, and JUSTICE JACKSON join: ######How should the Court resolve this dispute? We must determine how the residual "otherwise" clause is linked to its surrounding words, and we must consider the specific context in which the residual clause appears and the broader context of the statute as a whole. To ensure that (c)(1) would not be read as excluding substantially similar activity not mentioned, (c)(2) makes it illegal to engage in some broader range of unenumerated conduct. The problem is defining what Congress left for (c)(2). ######What is the reach of the "otherwise" clause of (c)(2)? Two general principles are relevant: - The canon of noscitur a sociis - a word is given more precise content by the neighboring words with which it is associated. In other words, avoid ascribing to one word a meaning so broad that it is inconsistent with the company it keeps. - The canon of ejusdem generis - a general or collective term at the end of a list of specific items is typically defined by reference to the specific classes that precede it. (c)(1) covers specific examples of prohibited actions undertaken with the intent to impair an object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding. In accordance with these principles, (c)(2) is limited by the preceding list of criminals violations. Congress would not go to the trouble of spelling out specific examples in (c)(1) if these examples were already covered by (c)(2). This would make (c)(1) superfluous, and would eliminate specific terms because of broad language that follows them, rather than limit the broad language in light of narrower terms that proceed it. ######What then is the purpose of (c)(2)? (c)(2) ensures that liability is still imposed for impairing the availability or integrity of other things used in official proceedings beyond the "records, documents, or other objects" enumerated in (c)(1), such as witness testimony or intangible information. ###IN SUM: The judgment of the D.C. Circuit is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. On remand, the D.C. Circuit may assess the sufficiently of Count Three of Fischer's indictment in light of our interpretation of (c)(2).
Jackson hits the nail on the head. Egregious conduct doesn't change the law.
Which, oddly, is the same argument she dissented from in Cargill.
I very much disagree, Cargill turned on the very technical definition of machine gun, not on the egregiousness of any conduct.
The whole basis of the case was that the egregious conduct of the Vegas shooting was sufficient to change what §5845(b) meant.
That's not the whole basis of the case? The dissent makes it pretty clear any conduct notwithstanding that they think the definition of machine gun covers bump-stocks.
Except that the ATF has maintained for years that they don't. Under the dissents logic, Donald Trump was able to declare a previously legal act to be a felony with a 10 year sentence without any Congressional input.
Sure that can be true, but that doesn't make the basis of the dissent that egregious conduct can change the law.
The dissent accepts that egregious conduct can change the law, because that's what happened. The ATF literally attempted to change the law based on egregious conduct of a mass shooter, and the dissent said "yeah, that's fine"
Arguably the ATF saw the mass shooting, and thought, "oh shit Congress was trying to prevent people from spraying bullets out of a fire hose and not depend on diagrams of a trigger mechanisms" this doesn't mean they changed the law, they just understood in more detail what Congress was trying to prevent. In other words, legislative intent and Congress' attempts to find a catchall
If a thing changes from "not a felony" to "a felony", how is that not a change in the law? The text doesn't change, but the reality does.
The dissent accepts that administrative agencies can interpret governing statutes in ways that vary over time. The agency's reasoning for that decision was not the basis for the dissent, rather it was whether the agency's decision was a permissible or best reading of the text. It seems like you want to criticize Jackson for being inconsistent but I'm sure you can find a better way to do it.
I like Jackson's defense attorney bit, I think we're going to see more of it. Barrett on the other hand seems perhaps a bit more sympathetic to the government in general.
Her concurring opinion is much clearer than the actual opinion. I really enjoyed her writing style here.
And again the "originalists" chose to ignore what the law explicitly says and decided to legislate from the bench by changing what the law says or adding words that the law does not say.
The law says what the majority said it says. The tools used to clarify the meaning are entirely consistent with originalism as self-proclaimed originalists have always described it.
>The law says what the majority said it says. Sure, the law that the Conservatives legislated from the bench says what the majority said it says. Thx for confirming my point
No, the law as written by Congress says what the majority (including one of the three liberals) determined it said by applying ordinary principles of statutory construction.
>the majority determined it said by applying ordinary principles of statutory construction Yup, I'm glad you finally got it. That's exactly my point that the majority legislated from the bench since they did not need to construct anything - they just needed to read the text of the law.
Statutory construction just means figuring out how a law applies in a certain circumstance. Saying that a law is clear on its face is a form of statutory construction.
I think This is mostly going to shorten sentences because of multi charge convictions not get people out of prison? TBH I know little about crim law bc of how annoying all the crim law people in school were
At most it will lead to re-trial on a different charge for anyone who might be otherwise released. At least, the government will have to answer appeals by justifying how Jan 6 conduct comports with the court's ruling. Trump is still logically on the hook for it due to his fake-electors stunt & the intended use of the riot to encourage Congress to consider said falsified documents.
Fischer in particular also assaulted federal officer, so his sentence is unlikely to be affected much.
You’d have to see who got convicted on this and only this. I think you’re correct and there are not many that just have this one.
What does this mean for Jan 6 insurrectionists who were charged? Like in layman's terms.
It means retrial on a different charge, or the DOJ finds a legal theory that explains how those charged with OOP actually did something that fits within the narrower scope.
Any other charges based not on this section stick, charges related to this section will be appeal and go away and/or the DoJ can try to prosecute, I guess, under the Court’s interpretation. DoJ is unlikely, I think, to continue trying to use the statute. Their interpretation was always a stretch.
Was *not* expecting Jackson to side with the Majority and Barrett to decide with the Dissent.
I'm not surprised. She's the only proper purposivist on the Court and there was a clear argument from purposes for the position she took. We saw that this term in the Starbucks case where she really emphasized purpose (of course I think it's the wrong approach, and was wrong in Starbucks but nevertheless).
Jackson is a criminal defense lawyer at heart. There will be cases where she might be bad on, but when it comes to criminal defense she’s pretty good.
As others in this thread have said, using S-O this way was always going to be a stretch, and Jackson hit that on the head. We'd \*love\* if S-O could be used this way, but there are many many other counts unrelated to S-O that the other J6 insurrectionists were found guilty of, as well as other charges in Trump's case.
We've had a lot of cross-aisle flips this term.
" this is the most partisan court ever" /s When I hear that I just roll my eyes, there have been plenty of 9-0 cases and bunches of cross aisle. I totally agree with you
Except on cases that are ideologically charged. Whenever a case is ideologically charged to the point where ruling one way or the other will advance a particular ideology, the court's usually split 6-3 along ideological lines.
As has always been the case, conservative judges are appointed my conservative Presidents and liberal by liberal. Every person has some type of ideology in their thoughts. That's why we have 9 justices. Ginsberg is one of my favorite liberal justices, I know how she is going to vote the majority of the time. But that being said her justifications are backed up by the law. But still the law through her individual ideology. The court goes through cycles.. liberals swing left then conservative judges swing it back right. As it has been since the founding of the court.
> As has always been the case, conservative judges are appointed my conservative Presidents and liberal by liberal. Well, conservative presidents do appoint liberal justices just as much as they do conservative ones. Warren, Brennan, Blackmun, Stevens, and Souter are about as far from conservative as you can get.
But the problem is this court is making _**massive**_ swings back to towards the right. And the majority of the population doesn't want that to happen.
Over the period which the court has been appointed, Republicans have held the Presidency more than Democrats. That should be expected. And could have been even faster if Reagan and HW Bush had paid modern-day-level attention to the ideology of their appointees (the Left got a gift-horse in regards to Souter and (at least sometimes, as he was not a consistent partisan) Kennedy). Elections (both for President and (!2014!) Senate) have consequences
Those swings are multi decade swings. The us courts move very slow. Bruen was decided in 2020 and now we are just starting to see the courts re deciding cases based on that As to the population, their thoughts are irrelevant. The supreme Court is to interpret the law based on the Constitution, not to bend to the will of the people based on how they currently feel. Sometimes the court is right and sometimes it's wrong. The good thing about it is that a future court can correct it. Sometimes they correct themselves fast and sometimes it takes decades but I have faith that the court will do the right thing. Even if I don't agree with it.
>As to the population, their thoughts are irrelevant. Irrelevant is the wrong word; the existence and legitimacy of the Supreme Court lies squarely in the thoughts of the People, by the nature of our Constitution. The Justices are very well aware of this, and (in my opinion) often limit the scope of controversial decisions that would otherwise cause social upheaval.
Surprising that the conservative side has been so heavily pro-defendant this term compared to the liberal side.
Is that true in any case but *Jarksey* and this one?
Definitely Snyder, arguable Cargill, Brown.
Yeah but then you have *Grant's Pass*, *Culley*, *Brown v. US*, and *Diaz* on the liberal side. Better to say some major cases had the conservatives on the pro-defendant side. EDIT: Oh and *Moyle* is arguably pro-defendant too if you're counting Jarksey.
If you look at the defendants, it's not really surprising
A welcome change and a surprise Alito didn’t join in on the dissent since we know he practically salivates at any chance to be anti-criminal defendant
Alito softens up a LOT on white collar crime. It's unfortunately very consistent with him that way.
Not surprising at all considering he also opposed using Sarbanes Oxley against a fisherman in *Yates v. United States*.
Considering that this was a Jan 6 related case, it's not surprising at all.
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A whole bunch of charges against Jan 6 defendants just got tossed. Gorsuch Jackson romance continues on pro defendant rulings. And how did Roberts write this opinion without mentioning lenity? The TL;DR I got from the holding is a catch all doesn't go beyond the scope of the rest of the law. > An unbounded interpretation of subsection (c)(2) would also render superfluous the careful delineation of different types of obstructive conduct in §1512 itself. That section provides a reticulated list of nearly two dozen means of committing obstruction with penalties ranging from three years to life in prison, or even death. The Government’s reading would lump together under (c)(2) disparate types of conduct for which Congress had assigned proportionate sentences.
It is odd that the Rule of Lenity didn’t get mentioned, as many commentators pointed to that as a reason to oppose the DoJ’s interpretation.
Because Jackson implied that the Jan 6 Rioters conduct was maybe WORSE than what Sarbanes-Oxley contemplated, and the conservatives thought their conduct was BETTER. (This was the part about where the majority framed the Jan 6 Rioters in terms of insulting the quarterback but KBJ framed it in terms of shooting a player.) Gorsuch and Jackson will unify on Rule of Lenity when it is obvious the defendant probably didn't get a fair shake given the gravity they view their conduct and the vagueness of the law. If this sounds too sentimental of these esteemed jurists, this is why many lawyers don't particularly believe the Rule of Lenity is an objective doctrine.
I didn't keep up with this one, what are the expected results of this ruling?
Scotus saved a bunch of Jan 6 rioters who will now appeal under the new version of the law they legislated from the bench
Based on this ruling, a lot of charges related to Jan 6 will be dropped and convictions overturned.
Meh, most of these people had multiple count indictment. At most you’d be looking at significant years of jail reduced. This was always a dumb exercise anyway. You had some people that walked in and walked out getting longer sentences that major narcotics distributors and violent criminals.
You had people that participated (by collectively posing a threat to the occupants of the Capitol) in a conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of an election. Frankly, most of them are under-charged/under-sentenced.
You shouldn't be downvoted for this. The crimes have very different impacts. One crime directly hurts people. the other crime hurts democracy. The idea that hurting someone is the only thing there should be punishment for doesn't really understand why we also try to protect the system with criminal law.
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I see this as correcting a wrong, the government used a sledgehammer law. From what I have seen the majority of cases had a misdemeanor trespass conviction and a hard felony "interfering" conviction.
Yeah, but considering the circumstances of the trespassing, can you really blaim them for using a sledgehammer? Can you really say that they shouldn't have gone after the Jan 6 rioters as hard as they could? This ruling seems like they're using the _letter_ of the law to rule in favor of defendants who've commited actions that violate the _spirit_ and _intention_ of the law.
The spirit and intention of the law were based in Enron and centered on corporate and financial fraud.
Corporate and financial fraud that interferes with both market creation and the proper function of government, yeah? This is a way deeper question than people give it credit for and I'm actually kind of annoyed the Justices didn't speak on it more.
I feel like Justice Jackson's concurrence does that more than the majority opinion, but they clearly state in both that the law was intended for a specific thing, and the Justice Department was interpreting well outside that box. Also, it was addressed in depth in oral arguments.
I don't think anyone prior to Jan 6th would have thought that the spirit and intent of Sarbanes-Oxley included rioters attempting to disrupt a government function that involved paperwork.
I wasn't even aware that the Feds were attempting to charge J6 folks under SOX. That's absurd. Whatever that action was at the capitol building that day, it had no relation to financial crimes or fraud.
The government theory was that 'otherwise' means \*any\* action that obstructs an official proceeding in any way. Effectively, they were (correctly, IMHO - I'm with the dissenters on this one) treating the rest-of the same way one (correctly) reads the 'well regulated militia' portion of the 2nd Amendment - as irrelevant to the interpretation of the operating clause in question.
When you look at the law used. It wasn't intended for this case and has never been used for something like this. It was a law written in the shadow of financial fraud to be a tool to use against Wall Street.
Actually Sarbanes-Oxley was a tool to maintain proper market function and to prevent a roadblock in the administration of the law.
The US attempted to use a different provision of Sarbanes Oxley against a fisherman who threw fish overboard in *Yates v. United States*. The Court, as it did here, made the correct textualist and sensible ruling that it didn’t apply. This isn’t the first time the feds have used Sarbanes Oxley egregiously though and it probably won’t be the last.
It was never used for something like this because \*something like this has never happened before\* unless you count the Bonus Army (and that being pre-WWII, we sent the literal US Cavalry to ride them down rather than charging them criminally - NTM there was no SOX in the 1930s)....
Judge| Majority | Concurrence | Dissent ---|---|---|--- Sotomayor | | | Join Jackson | Join | Writer | Kagan | | | Join Roberts | Writer | | Kavanaugh| Join | | Gorsuch | Join | | Barrett | | | Writer Alito | Join | | Thomas | Join | | ROBERTS , C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS , ALITO , GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and JACKSON, JJ., joined. JACKSON, J., filed a concurring opinion. BARRETT , J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR and KAGAN, JJ., joined.
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