The Supreme Court released major decisions yesterday that upended the decades-old Chevron deference doctrine and narrowed the way courts could apply a financial reform law the Biden administration used to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants. In doing so, the justices raised questions about the Justice Department’s response to Jan. 6 and the future of administrative power.
Another case, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, saw the 6-3 conservative majority holding that a city law against public camping didn’t violate the constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. A dissent authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the city as punishing people for their status as homeless—something she described as “unconscionable and unconstitutional.”
Those were just some of the hotly anticipated cases for the 2023-2024 term, which has been extended for one day in July. A handful of decisions are expected that day on former President Donald Trump’s immunity appeal in his Washington trial, laws in Texas and Florida regulating social media giants, and another concerning the statute of limitations for challenging regulation.
By overruling Chevron, the justices removed deference typically afforded to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes passed by Congress. Under the court’s new precedent, judges will need to interpret statutes as they usually do rather than applying a two-step test that was employed under Chevron.
A 6-3 conservative majority on the court overruled the doctrine while the court’s three liberals dissented as they had in another recent administrative case, SEC v. Jarkesy. That case and the ones overruling Chevron (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce) are expected to empower the judiciary while limiting the executive’s authority.
It’s unclear how Congress will be impacted but the decision could force legislators to be more specific in their language when authorizing regulation.
Both the majority and the dissent raised concerns about the nation’s separation of powers, which generally refers to the balance of power between the three federal branches of government. Justice Kagan, who penned the dissent, warned that the judicial branch was arrogating itself rather than practicing restraint.
Justices Roberts and Clarence Thomas argued that the majority was restoring the proper constitutional power outlined for Article III courts. In his concurrence, Justice Thomas said that “[b]y tying a judge’s hands, Chevron prevents the Judiciary from serving as a constitutional check on the Executive.”
In Fischer v. United States, wherein the court narrowed a charge for Jan. 6 defendants, the court remanded the case to a lower court for further proceedings. While it remains to be seen how the court will rule on President Trump’s immunity, the decision in Fischer could impact how the former president’s case proceeds in D.C. District Court.
Another 6-3 majority held that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit misinterpreted a provision of Sarbanes-Oxley, the financial reform law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal.
The provision in question, Section 1512(c) reads: “Whoever corruptly alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
The D.C. circuit said the word “otherwise” served as a catch-all that covered obstructive behavior not included in the prior wording. The Supreme Court disagreed, stating that “[i]t would be peculiar to conclude that in closing the Enron gap, Congress actually hid away in the second part of the third subsection of Section 1512 a catchall provision that reaches far beyond the document shredding and similar scenarios that prompted the legislation in the first place.”
Instead, the Supreme Court held that there was more of a direct relation between “otherwise” and the preceding parts of the law. It held that “DOJ must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so.”
The vote breakdown raised eyebrows as Justice Amy Coney Barrett penned the dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former judge on the D.C. circuit, joined the other judges in the majority.
Justice Jackson’s concurrence read: “Our commitment to equal justice and the rule of law requires the courts to faithfully apply criminal laws as written, even in periods of national crisis ... and even when the conduct alleged is indisputably abhorrent.”
She indicated, however, that the prosecution against Joseph Fischer, the defendant who appealed, could proceed. “[I]t might well be that Fischer’s conduct, as alleged here, involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the January 6 proceeding” in ways not specified earlier in the statute. “If so, then Fischer’s prosecution under §1512(c)(2) can, and should, proceed.”
