Full Text of DC Circuit Court of Appeals Decision Re-instating Obstruction Charges
Will update as I read...
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.38789/gov.uscourts.cadc.38789.1208508143.0.pdf
Hard smack:
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Notably, no fewer than fourteen district judges in this
jurisdiction have adopted the broad reading of the statute urged
by the government to uphold the prosecution of defendants
who allegedly participated in the Capitol riot.
Although the
opinions of those district judges are not binding on us, the near
unanimity of the rulings is striking, as well as the thorough and
persuasive reasoning in the decisions. ... The district judge in the instant case stands
alone in ruling that § 1512(c)(2) cannot reach the conduct of
January 6 defendants.
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As an initial matter, it is implausible that Congress
intended § 1512(c)(2) to apply to obstructive acts related only
to documents, objects, records, or other evidence, yet chose the
words “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official
proceeding” to express that intent.
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The dissenting opinion chooses to adopt the “evidence-impairment”
approach because it “has a bit of a Goldilocks quality to it — not too
narrow and not too broad, but just right.” Dissenting Op. at 15. Even
assuming ambiguity, however, the dissenting opinion cites no
authority — other than Goldilocks — for replacing the most natural
reading of the statute with an alternative interpretation that has no
basis in the statutory text but feels “just right.” Id. Nor can the
dissenting opinion’s unorthodox methodology be justified by its goal
of avoiding the broad implications of what Congress wrote in the
statute.
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