The evidence-tampering statute being used by the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants is unconstitutionally broad, interferes with First Amendment free speech, and has left prosecutors with “unbridled, standardless discretion to effectively make up their own law,” a new Supreme Court filing argues.
The High Court is considering whether to take up a challenge to the use of the law (pdf) brought by Jan. 6 defendant Edward Jacob Lang, 28, of New York.
Mr. Lang, at least 317 other defendants, and former President Donald Trump have been charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding: the tallying of Electoral College votes from the 2020 presidential election by a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. The charge is a felony with a maximum 20-year prison term.
A new amicus curiae brief (pdf) filed by the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation said the co-opted evidence-tampering law—18 U.S. Code §1512(c)(2)—“means whatever a creative prosecutor lacking caution wishes it to mean.”
“To be charged is to be convicted because the criminal charge has no fixed meaning,” wrote attorneys Thomas Renz and Bradford Geyer in a 61-page brief filed with the Supreme Court on Sept. 29.
The FormerFedsGroup brief follows an amici curiae brief (pdf) filed on Aug. 30 by attorneys for three other Jan. 6 defendants—Christopher J. Warnagiris, 43, Christopher J. Carnell, 21, and William Robert Norwood III, 40.