{"id":1981054,"date":"2023-07-24T04:13:01","date_gmt":"2023-07-24T08:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jan-6-rioter-says-his-supreme-court-petition-could-affect-hundreds-of-doj-cases\/"},"modified":"2023-07-24T04:15:37","modified_gmt":"2023-07-24T08:15:37","slug":"jan-6-rioter-says-his-supreme-court-petition-could-affect-hundreds-of-doj-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jan-6-rioter-says-his-supreme-court-petition-could-affect-hundreds-of-doj-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan. 6 rioter claims Supreme Court petition may impact &#8216;many&#8217; DOJ cases."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjan-6-rioter-says-his-supreme-court-petition-could-affect-hundreds-of-doj-cases%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1981054&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>A Defendant&#8217;s Challenge to Obstruction Charge in Capitol Riot Case Reaches Supreme Court<\/h2>\n<p>A defendant facing 11 charges\u200b for\u2062 participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol\u200d is asking\u200b the\u200d Supreme Court to toss out one\u2062 of his charges\u200d for obstructing \u2062justice, \u2064arguing it \u2064could \u200dbe levied against &#8220;anyone who attends a public demonstration gone awry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The justices are being\u200c asked to consider whether a federal\u200b law, Section 1512 (c)(2) \u2063of the United States Code, is the right\u2063 statute to prosecute defendant Edward Lang, saying this\u200b question &#8220;will arise in hundreds of cases as the Department of Justice \u200bcontinues to charge \u200cfolks who participated in\u200d a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/italy-erupts-in-protests-over-vaccine-mandates\/\" title=\"Italy Erupts In Protests Over Vaccine Mandates\">protest turned violent<\/a> \u200bon January 6, \u20642021,&#8221; according to \u200ca\u200b petition filed\u200c on July 11.<\/p>\n<h3>Obstruction Charge and Alleged Conduct<\/h3>\n<p>On the day of the riot, Lang was \u200ballegedly seen on video picking up a police riot shield and \u200bslamming it into the ground near law enforcement, according\u2064 to\u200d an FBI affidavit. \u200dHe is also accused \u200dof \u200cswinging a \u200cbaseball bat \u2063at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jan-6-rioter-says-his-supreme-court-petition-could-affect-hundreds-of-doj-cases\/\" title=\"Jan. 6 rioter claims Supreme Court petition may impact 'many' DOJ cases.\">police officers multiple times<\/a>, striking officers&#8217; shields.<\/p>\n<p>Lang&#8217;s counsel filed a motion to dismiss the\u2063 obstruction \u2064charge, which carries a 20-year sentence, before his trial, and the\u200b U.S. District Court for\u200c the District\u200b of Columbia granted his\u200b motion. An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/federal-court-is-fast-tracking-sidney-powells-request-for-a-forensic-exam-of-dominion-voting-machines\/\" title=\"Federal Court Is Fast-Tracking Sidney Powell\u2019s Request For A Forensic Exam Of Dominion Voting Machines\">appeals court<\/a> later reversed the lower court&#8217;s judgment, and \u200da motion for a rehearing \u200dwas denied.<\/p>\n<p>The charge in question carries the stiffest penalty\u2063 available to prosecutors so far in the Jan. 6 cases and\u2063 has also been applied to\u200c several notable figures involved in the riot, including Enrique\u200b Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes, leaders\u2062 of\u2064 the groups Proud Boys\u200c and Oath Keepers, respectively, along with some\u200d of\u200d their associates.<\/p>\n<p>While dozens of Jan.\u200b 6 defendants have sought to have \u200dthe charge dismissed, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, \u2064an appointee \u2062of former President Donald\u200b Trump, is the only judge\u200c that has been willing to do so in Lang&#8217;s \u2064case.<\/p>\n<h3>Statute&#8217;s Broad Application and Potential Impact<\/h3>\n<p>Lang&#8217;s\u2064 attorney Norm Pattis told the\u2063 Washington Examiner that the statute has\u200d been broadly applied\u2064 to \u2062his client&#8217;s case, \u200dnoting the language of the statute states\u200b an \u200bindividual who &#8220;corruptly\u200b alters,\u2062 destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document&#8221; or &#8220;otherwise obstructs, influences, \u2063or \u200dimpedes any official\u200b proceeding,\u2063 or\u200b attempts to \u2063do so&#8221; can be imprisoned for up to 20 years. The official proceeding refers \u2064to Congress&#8217; certification of the Electoral College\u200b votes that elected Joe Biden as president.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What does it mean to do something corruptly?&#8221; Pattis asked, adding that the upshot of allowing\u2062 this charge to stand means \u200dthat &#8220;a lot\u200d of people are gonna be afraid to turn up at public events for fear if somebody acts \u200bup, they&#8217;re all gonna go to prison.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Supreme Court Review and Potential Implications<\/h3>\n<p>Pattis believes that Lang&#8217;s\u2064 case\u2064 would be ripe\u200d for Supreme Court review, in part because of a recent decision in a case known as Counterman v. Colorado, a 7-2 decision\u200c holding \u200cwhen a defendant is \u2064prosecuted for communicating\u2063 a violent threat, the government must \u2063prove\u200c that\u2063 the defendant understood that the communication would likely be \u200cperceived as a threat.<\/p>\n<p>The\u200c petition calls on the justices to hear the case\u2064 &#8220;as the nation&#8217;s attention turns to the\u200b 2024 election,&#8221; \u2062adding that there is &#8220;good reason&#8221; to \u2063believe the DOJ&#8217;s use of the statute \u2062will &#8220;serve to chill \u200dpolitical speech and expression on the eve of one of \u200bthe\u200c most consequential events\u200c in American life \u2013 \u200cthe election \u200dof the next \u2063President of the\u200c United States.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The case will be \u200dconsidered by the nine justices during a Sept. \u200d26 conference, according to the \u2063high court&#8217;s docket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A defendant in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot seeks Supreme Court&#8217;s help to dismiss one of his 11 charges, claiming it unfairly targets those attending unruly public demonstrations. The court must decide if a federal law can be applied broadly to obstruct justice in such cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1981055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1981054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1981055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}