After the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a former police officer’s obstruction of justice charge Friday morning for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, across the street from the courthouse, other alleged insurrectionists celebrated.
“I should never have been charged with aggravated obstruction, and neither were the hundreds of other suspects from January 6th,” one of the convicted rioters, Alexander Sheppard, wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday. The Ohio man, who was sentenced to 19 months in federal prison for storming police lines at the Capitol, was released from prison in May pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. United States.
“For nearly four years, the Justice Department put us through hell for supporting President Trump and standing up for election integrity,” he wrote. “As one of the 52 defendants for whom Obstruction was my ONLY crime, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I am going to reoffend soon, and I pray that my judge will now see this entire case as it has always been: a complete and total sham.”
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Joseph Fischer, a former police officer who stormed the Capitol, should not have been charged with obstructing an official proceeding over an effort to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election by counting states’ electoral votes. The majority ruling said the obstruction law that federal prosecutors used to charge Fischer, Section 1512 of U.S. Code Title 18, was intended only for cases involving tampering with physical evidence.
“January 6 was an unprecedented attack on the cornerstone of our system of government — the peaceful transfer of power from one government to another,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday, responding to the Supreme Court’s decision. “I am disappointed by today’s decision, which limits a key federal law that the Department has sought to use to ensure that those most responsible for that attack face appropriate consequences.”
Fischer, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, was in a happier mood.
“He and his family were overjoyed,” Fischer’s attorney, Jeff Green, told HuffPost on Friday. “This has been a long road for him, but there’s more of that road ahead of us. This is just one of seven charges, six more pending, and we’ve got to take care of that.” Among the other charges against Fischer is one of assaulting a police officer.
The Supreme Court’s decision could impact more than 200 defendants in cases related to the Capitol riot and is likely to confirm right-wing and MAGA narratives that the alleged insurrectionists are “political prisoners.”
According to an NBC countOf the 1,400 Capitol riot defendants, the obstruction of justice statute at the center of the Supreme Court case has been used against 247 people. It is the sole felony charge against only 52 of those defendants. Of those, 27 are currently serving sentences.
Other Capitol rioters were jubilant nonetheless. “We won!” read a post on an X account associated with Richard Barnett, a self-described white nationalist who was photographed putting his feet up on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk during the riot.#SCOTUS in a 6-3 decision overturned the 1512 indictment. The first light of justice finally breaks through the bonds of darkness and evil in DC”
Barnett is serving a 54-month prison sentence for his role in the Capitol riot. Of the eight counts in his conviction, one was an obstruction charge that was dismissed by the Supreme Court. (It is unclear whether Barnett tweeted himself on Friday, or if someone outside prison tweeted it for him.)
William Pope, a Kansas PhD candidate and former city council candidate who also faces eight charges related to the riot, including one count of obstruction, tweeted Friday that “Biden’s extreme DOJ has spent nearly 4 years falsely accusing me of a 20-year-old crime based on their blatant, no-holds-barred reading of the law.”
“Many defendants have served prison sentences on these charges,” he added. “Today, the Supreme Court rightly reprimanded the government for its tyranny.”
“It’s official,” tweeted Tim Hale, another rioter who was convicted of obstruction on January 6. “I just spent 3 years in prison for something that isn’t a crime. #J6 #Fedsurrection.”
Micki Witthoeft, whose daughter Ashli Babbitt was killed by U.S. Capitol Police as she tried to crawl through a broken window into the Speaker’s lobby near the House chamber, was thrilled by the Supreme Court’s decision.
“I’m surprised, absolutely surprised,” Witthoeft, who has held regular vigils outside a Washington jail holding several Jan. 6 suspects, told HuffPost. “I’m very happy about it.”
“I just hope this will affect a lot of them,” she added. “I look forward to seeing many of these men out of prison.”
During Thursday night’s debate, former President Donald Trump expressed support for those arrested after January 6. “What they did to some people who are so innocent, you should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told Biden. “What you did, how you destroyed the lives of so many people.”
Trump has repeatedly said he could pardon those convicted in the Jan. 6 riots if he becomes president. That could still happen, but until then the Supreme Court has offered them modest relief.
