Supreme Court Sends Two Jan. 6 Cases Back for Reconsideration

The Supreme Court decided on July 2 to send the cases of two Jan. 6 defendants back to lower courts after ruling this past week that the federal government was wrong to use an accounting law to charge Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer with obstructing an official proceeding. The follow-up decisions were made after the nation’s highest court ruled in Fischer v. United States on June 28 that a provision in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 18 U.S. Code Section 1512, which focuses on ensuring that documentation is made available for official proceedings, did not apply to the case. The evidence-tampering legislation was enacted in the wake of fraud-related scandals at Enron Corp. and other major corporations in the early 2000s. Enron employed dubious accounting practices to disguise falling profits and exaggerate earnings, and its employees reportedly began destroying paperwork when they learned that indictments were on the horizon....