Motive..

 

Federal prosecutors improperly charged a Jan. 6 defendant with obstruction, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday, a decision that will likely upend many cases against rioters who disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election and one which Donald Trump’s legal team may use to try to whittle down one of his criminal cases.     

After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, federal prosecutors charged more than 350 participants among the pro-Trump mob with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding.

The charge carries a 20-year maximum penalty and is part of a law enacted after the exposure of massive fraud and shredding of documents during the collapse of the energy giant Enron.   

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said prosecutors’ overly broad reading of the statute gives them too much discretion to seek a 20-year maximum sentence “for acts Congress saw fit to punish only with far shorter terms of imprisonment.”
Just a thought.