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A former police officer who was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot has had his sentence lessened after a Supreme Court ruling restricting the use of a federal obstruction charge.
The case could influence the outcome of other January 6 proceedings, including against former President Donald Trump.
Thomas Robertson received his seven-year sentence after he was convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building, and disorderly conduct.
The sentence was reduced to six years on Wednesday. It was the first time that a defendant linked to the insurrection was resentenced after the Supreme Court ruling, according to USA Today.
Robertson, alongside other defendants, pushed back against the obstruction charge, arguing that the legislation required that he acted “corruptly,” but he lost his appeal.
He argued that he didn’t act corruptly because he didn’t try to attain any personal benefit by taking part.
However, another officer, Joseph Fischer, argued that the charge couldn’t apply to him or others such as Robertson as the law was written to stop the destruction of documents after the Enron energy scandal. While the officers entered the Capitol, they rejected the notion that they destroyed public records.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Fischer and in June, the court ordered lower courts to take another look at obstruction cases to see if they had anything to do with the destruction of records. Fischer now won’t be charged with obstruction.
After the Fischer ruling, Robertson requested a shorter sentence.
One of his attorneys, Mark Rollins, said, “This decision underscores that while the conviction remains, the sentencing must be revisited under a more favorable framework.”
More than 330 of the initial 1,400 people charged in the January 6 attack on Congress were charged with obstruction. Out of the four federal charges Trump faces in his election interference, two allege that he obstructed an official proceeding – namely the counting of the electoral votes certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
The Department of Justice has stated that there was no one who was charged only with obstruction.
The prosecution requested that the initial sentence of 87 months remain in place because of Robertson’s actions at the capitol.
Robertson came to Washington, DC, along with Jacob Fracker from Rocky Mount, Virginia, where they both served in the city’s police department.
A legal filing stated at the West Front of the Capitol, Robertson struck at least two officers with a large wooden stick.
Robertson subsequently boasted on Facebook about entering the Capitol, writing: “If you are too much of a coward to risk arrest, being fired, and actual gunfire to secure your rights, you have no words to speak I value.”
Robertson destroyed his and Fracker’s phones after he became aware of the FBI arrest warrant against him. Guns were found at his home even as the terms of his release prohibited him from having firearms.
In April 2022, Robertson was convicted of all six charges that he faced: Obstruction, interfering with law enforcement, entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct on two counts, and destroying evidence.
The judge at the initial sentencing said Robertson saw politics as akin to war and that he would do similar things again if “called upon” to do so.
His conviction was upheld in May by a three-judge panel, but one judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, wrote in a dissent that she would have overturned the conviction following the Fischer ruling.
Robertson subsequently attempted to reduce his sentence based on two rulings – the Supreme Court Fischer case and a DC Court of Appeals case known as Brock, which ruled that Congress counting the Electoral College votes does not amount to “administration of justice.”
That description had meant longer federal guidelines for Robertson’s sentence.
