Supreme Court makes it harder to charge Capitol riot defendants with obstruction, charge Trump faces

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press All Rights Reservedon Friday made it harder to charge Capitol riot defendants with obstruction, a charge that also has been brought against former President Donald Trump.that the charge of obstructing an official proceeding, enacted in 2002 in response to the financial scandal that brought down Enron Corp., must include proof that defendants tried to tamper with or destroy documents.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court's opinion, joined by conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, and by liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Most lower court judges who have weighed in have allowed the charge to stand. Among them, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, wrote that “statutes often reach beyond the principal evil that animated them.”

More than 1,400 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Approximately 1,000 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury or a judge after a trial.

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