Fischer v. United States
The Supreme Court narrowed a federal obstruction law that prosecutors relied on heavily to charge January 6 Capitol rioters, ruling that the statute requires defendants to have impaired evidence or records used in an official proceeding — not merely disrupted the proceeding itself.
The decision casts doubt on dozens of January 6 prosecutions and sends Fischer's case back to the lower court to determine whether his conduct can still qualify under the newly tightened standard.
How it got here: Fischer moved to dismiss the obstruction charge; the federal district court agreed; a divided D.C. Circuit panel reversed; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and vacated the D.C. Circuit's judgment.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Joseph Fischer was among the crowd that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, while Congress was meeting to certify the 2020 presidential election results. He allegedly pushed police back inside the building. Prosecutors charged him with, among other crimes, obstructing an official proceeding under a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Fischer argued that provision covers only conduct that tampers with evidence, not the general disruption of a proceeding.
The question before the Court
Could the federal obstruction law used to charge hundreds of January 6 defendants reach any act that disrupts an official proceeding, or is it limited to conduct that tampers with evidence?
The Court's answer
No — not quite that broadly. The Court ruled that § 1512(c)(2), the obstruction provision used to charge many January 6 defendants, does not reach all forms of disrupting an official proceeding. Instead, a prosecutor must show that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity of records, documents, objects, or other things used in the proceeding — or attempted to do so. The law's "otherwise obstruct" clause, the Court held, takes its meaning from the evidence-focused conduct described in the subsection immediately before it.
The Court sent Fischer's case back to the D.C. Circuit, which must now assess whether his specific conduct at the Capitol — trespassing and physically confronting police while Congress was certifying the electoral vote — actually impaired evidence or materials used in that proceeding. That question remains open, and the government may still be able to proceed with the charge under the narrowed standard.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Dozens of people charged in connection with the January 6 Capitol attack face potential dismissal or reduction of the most serious obstruction count against them. Prosecutors must now show each defendant impaired the availability or integrity of evidence used in the certification proceeding — not just that they disrupted the event. The ruling does not guarantee freedom for any defendant; lower courts must reassess individual cases under the narrower rule.
What changes now
The D.C. Circuit must reassess Fischer's obstruction charge under the Supreme Court's narrower standard, asking whether his conduct impaired evidence or materials used in Congress's January 6 certification proceeding. Justice Jackson's concurrence noted the government may still be able to make that case. Separately, dozens of other January 6 defendants charged under § 1512(c)(2) will likely seek reconsideration of their charges in light of this ruling.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Fischer or any other January 6 defendant actually violated § 1512(c)(2) under the narrowed standard. It also left open whether the certification proceeding used records or objects whose integrity was impaired by rioters — a question Justice Jackson specifically flagged as one the lower courts should resolve on remand.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson joined the majority but wrote separately to explain that the interpretive canons the Court applied — noscitur a sociis and ejusdem generis — are valid not as mechanical rules but because they reliably illuminate congressional intent. She grounded the result in legislative purpose: the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted to close the Enron document-destruction loophole, not to create a sweeping general obstruction felony. She also noted that Fischer could still face prosecution if the government can show his conduct impaired evidence used in the January 6 proceeding.
Dissent — Justice Barrett
Justice Barrett argued that § 1512(c)(2) means what it says: it covers all forms of obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding by means other than those specified in (c)(1). She contended the majority misapplied the noscitur and ejusdem generis canons to a statute that has two distinct, independent prohibitions — not a laundry list followed by a catchall. Fischer's alleged conduct — helping force the delay of Congress's joint session — plainly obstructs an official proceeding, and the majority's narrowing of the statute was, in her view, textually unsupported.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court began with the structure of § 1512(c), which contains two subsections in a single sentence: (c)(1) prohibits destroying, altering, or concealing records, documents, or objects 'with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding'; (c)(2) then makes it illegal to 'otherwise obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding.' The central dispute was how broadly to read the 'otherwise' clause.
- The Court applied two classic interpretive tools. The first, noscitur a sociis (Latin for 'a word is known by the company it keeps'), says that a general term takes its meaning from the specific words around it. The second, ejusdem generis (a general term following a list of specifics is limited by those specifics), similarly counsels that (c)(2)'s broad language should be read in light of (c)(1)'s focused, evidence-related conduct.
- Reading (c)(2) to cover all forms of obstruction would make (c)(1) pointless — an elaborate list of specific evidence-tampering acts rendered meaningless by a neighboring subsection that already reaches everything. The Court said that reading gets the interpretive exercise 'exactly backwards,' since specific terms should limit broad language, not the other way around.
- The legislative history of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act reinforced a narrow reading. Congress enacted § 1512(c) specifically to close the 'Enron gap' — the loophole that let someone who personally shredded documents escape liability. It would be implausible that while patching that narrow hole, Congress quietly inserted the first-ever sweeping general federal obstruction felony, buried in a subsection of a subsection.
- A broad reading would also make most of the rest of federal obstruction law unnecessary. Congress wrote a detailed web of provisions targeting specific obstructive acts with carefully calibrated penalties ranging from three years to life in prison. Reading (c)(2) to cover essentially all obstruction would collapse those distinctions, letting prosecutors charge nearly anything under a single 20-year felony — a result the Court said intrudes on Congress's exclusive power to define crimes and set punishments.
- The Court concluded that § 1512(c)(2) criminalizes impairing the availability or integrity of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding — by means other than those specifically listed in (c)(1). False evidence creation or tampering with witness testimony, for example, can still violate (c)(2). What cannot is simply shutting down a proceeding without any nexus to the evidence used in it.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Yates v. United States (574 U.S. 528)
Reaffirmed the principle of resisting readings that turn narrow obstruction provisions into sweeping catchall statutes.
Reaffirms Begay v. United States (553 U.S. 137)
Relied on as authority that an 'otherwise' clause is limited by the specific examples preceding it, even in criminal statutes.