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A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a sentencing enhancement used against Jan. 6 defendants charged with felony obstruction, a decision that means that over 100 convicted rioters may have to be resentenced.
It’s not clear what benefit retired Air Force lieutenant colonel Larry R. Brock Jr. or any other Jan. 6 defendant will receive because of the ruling. Enhancements raise the range of suggested sentences judges must consider. D.C. judges usually sentence below those guidelines, and regularly make clear that their punishments would be the same without the enhancement.
If the Supreme Court reverses or pares back the use of the obstruction charge, all of those cases would have to be reconsidered anew. This sentencing guidelines dispute is not as disruptive, but it adds to workload of prosecutors and the courts as they work their way through the latter half of 1,300 charged cases, three years after the rioting.
Obstruction of Congress is one of the four felony charges Trump faces in D.C. federal court; he is also accused of conspiring to commit that crime.
The appellate court had already ruled that “obstructing an official proceeding” does not apply only to destroying evidence, as many Jan. 6 defendants have claimed. Even though the crime was created in response to attempts to cover up a financial scandal, the court said, stopping Congress from certifying a presidential election also qualifies. That ruling will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court on April 16. But judges have disagreed on one element of the crime — what it means to act “corruptly.”
Multiple Jan. 6 defendants argue that even if the obstruction charge covers storming the Capitol, their actions were not “corrupt” because they did not believe they were doing anything wrong. Pillard and the other judges acknowledged that there was disagreement over that part of the law and the line between misdemeanor demonstrating illegally and felony obstruction.
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