By Ashley Murray | AZ Mirror
WASHINGTON — A former Pennsylvania police officer who joined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that delayed the certification of the 2020 presidential election results cannot be charged with obstructing an official proceeding unless a lower court finds otherwise, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The ruling throws into question the cases of potentially hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants who faced the same charge, as well as a portion of Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment alleging former President Donald Trump schemed to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
In a 6-3 opinion, the justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, wrote that the subsection in question of an early 2000s obstruction law can only be applied to tampering with physical records.
“To prove a violation of Section 1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we earlier explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so,” Roberts wrote.
“The judgment of the D. C. Circuit is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” Roberts wrote.
