The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a defense claim by a Jan. 6 defendant to ward off a move that prosecutors have used against more than 1,400 people, Politico reported on Tuesday.
The issue at hand is whether Jan. 6 defendant Couy Griffin could argue that he was unaware of "knowingly" breaching a Secret-Service-protected permitter and the government did not conclusively prove that Griffin was aware of the restrictions in place at the time of riots.
In a 2-1 ruling, Judges Cornelia Pillard and Judith Rogers decided the trespassing law being adjudicated was passed to bolster security for Secret Service protectees. At the time of the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, former Vice President Mike Pence was inside the Capitol, therefore the grounds were under heightened Secret Service restriction.
The court ruled that requiring the Justice Department's prosecutors to prove that trespassers were aware of the Secret Service protectee's location would "impair the Secret Service's ability to protect its charges."
"The government was not required to prove that Griffin was aware that the Vice President's presence was the reason the grounds remained restricted," Pillard wrote, joined by Rogers. "A person trespassing on grounds he knows are restricted, where he knows he lacks permission to be, may be convicted of a federal misdemeanor trespass — even if he does not know that a Secret Service protectee is within."
Griffin had argued that the law was so broad in scope that it could be used to punish anyone who steps into a restricted area simply to shorten the distance between two places.
The judges said the purpose of the law was aimed at "a small subset of trespassing offenses that implicate both the personal security of the most high-profile federal officials — and also, necessarily, the national security of the United States."
The ruling gives the Justice Department's prosecutors some solace following months of rulings that have slowly negated hundreds of cases it had brought against the protestors of Jan. 6.
Yet, the lone dissent issued by Judge Gregory Katsas likely increases the chances that the Supreme Court will eventually take up the issue.
The outlet noted that if the Supreme Court narrows the scope of the federal trespassing law it will send a ripple effect down through the hundreds of misdemeanor convictions of Jan. 6 offenders and hamper the ongoing prosecutions of hundreds more.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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