January 6 rioter no longer faces obstruction charge after Supreme Court ruling, will face trial on other charges

By Hannah Rabinowitz and Katelyn Polantz, CNN

(CNN) — A former Pennsylvania police officer whose US Capitol riot criminal case landed at the Supreme Court will go to trial next year, a federal judge said Wednesday.

For months, Joseph Fischer’s case was on pause while the high court considered whether one of the charges he faced – obstructing an official proceeding – was being interpreted improperly when applied to riot-related criminal cases.

In their ruling this summer, the nine justices narrowed the scope of the obstruction law, which the Justice Department used to bring obstruction charges against hundreds of January 6 defendants.

The high court did not throw out the obstruction charge against Fischer but sent the case back to lower courts with instructions about how to assess the charge in light of its June ruling.

When the case returned to federal district court on Wednesday, District Judge Carl Nichols said that “what remains of this case” will go to trial in February 2025.

Prosecutor Alexis Loeb said Fischer will face trial on other charges – not including obstruction. Fischer faces six other charges related to the riot, including assaulting law enforcement officers and civil disorder.

Fischer is alleged to have recorded himself yelling “charge!” and running into the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and said over text that that protesters should drag Democrats “into the street and have a mob trial.”

Though Nichols acknowledged that bringing the case in front of a jury next year is a “pretty long delay,” he told attorneys on the case that he would try to “accelerate” the case should he have openings in his trial schedule.

Nichols was the sole judge at the trial-court level to rule that a rioter like Fischer shouldn’t face an obstruction charge because the law was intended to relate specifically to tampering with a document.

Other judges determined that January 6 rioters could face obstruction charges because they broadly related to the congressional proceeding to certify the election.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer was in line with Nichols’ ruling two years ago, tying the obstruction prosecutions to the need for prosecutors to show records, documents or other evidence used in the Congressional proceeding on January 6 was affected by the rioters.

That has prompted Justice Department prosecutors to rewrite some cases against rioters they’ve been working on for years, including by asking the court earlier this week to drop the obstruction conviction of another rioter, Ethan Seitz.

And the judges in the DC District Court have been calling hearings this month to reconsider the rioter cases before them in light of the Supreme Court decision.

Nearly 1,500 rioters have faced charges related to the Capitol riot, with 259 facing the obstruction count that the high court looked at in Fischer, according to the DOJ. All of the rioters who face charges are being prosecuted on counts in addition to the obstruction charge, meaning none are walking free from court proceedings because of the Supreme Court decision.

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