“Increasingly, it looks as though a majority of this Court is willing to bend the normal rules to favor Trump,” said Prof. Kermit Roosevelt.
In Fischer v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former police officer seeking to throw out an obstruction charge for joining the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The justices sided with Fischer, who is among hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants—including former President Donald Trump—charged with obstructing an official proceeding in efforts to prevent Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
The court concluded that 18 U. S. C. §1512(c)(2), enacted in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, was only intended to apply to efforts to destroy or tamper with documents or other physical evidence.
Kermit Roosevelt, David Berger Professor for the Administration of Justice, said:
If this were an ordinary criminal statutory interpretation case, the lineup would be a shock—the conservatives don’t usually interpret laws in favor of criminal defendants. But it’s a Trump case, and so the lineup is less of a surprise and more of a disappointment.
Increasingly, it looks as though a majority of this Court is willing to bend the normal rules to favor Trump.
Roosevelt works in a diverse range of fields, focusing on constitutional law and conflict of laws. He has published scholarly books in both fields, including The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
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