I ain’t a lawyer….
But overrunning Congress would be seen as a offical business being (‘obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so’ ) disrupted and a crime that WAS to stop the certification of a Presidential Election….
Most Jan. 6 defendants where charged under addtional statues also…
The court could find a middle ground that would NOT throw out the already decidied cases and still limit the use of the statue…
More than 350 people have been prosecuted under the statute, which was enacted after the exposure of massive fraud and destruction of documents during the collapse of the energy giant Enron and carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. More than 100 have pleaded guilty to or been convicted under the statute.
The court’s ruling has the potential to unwind their convictions and sentences, most of which were well under 20 years, and upend the charges still pending for other defendants. Three Jan. 6 defendants have had their sentences reduced ahead of a decision by the Supreme Court….
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Much of the discussion Tuesday centered on how to properly interpret the text of a statute in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed by Congress in 2002, after the Enron scandal. The meaning of the word “otherwise” appeared key as the justices discussed how narrowly or broadly prosecutors can apply the statute.
The law applies to anyone who “corruptly — (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.”
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[ Solicitor General Elizabeth B.] Prelogar told the justices that the second clause should be read as a “catchall” that prohibits unanticipated methods of impeding an official proceeding, such as occupying the Capitol building and forcing the suspension of Congress’s joint session certifying the election results. The word “otherwise” means “in a different manner,” she said.
Only two justices — Elena Kagan and Sotomayor — seemed to fully embrace the Justice Department’s position. Kagan said Congress intentionally used broad language as a backstop for other potential types of obstruction.
Sotomayor agreed, suggesting that it was a straightforward question: “I don’t see why that’s not the backstop that Congress would have intended, and it’s the language it used.”…
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Two other justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson, seemed interested in limiting the ways in which the government can use the statute so that it would apply only to evidence-related obstruction, but without automatically derailing hundreds of Jan. 6 cases…..