A split panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Oct. 22 upheld the conviction of Couy Griffin, a former Oklahoma commissioner and founder of the Cowboys for Trump group.
Griffin said in his appeal that the government did not prove that the area around the Capitol was sufficiently marked as restricted when he entered and remained there. He also argued that prosecutors did not prove that he knew the area was restricted.
The law in question bars people from knowingly entering or remaining in restricted buildings or on restricted grounds without the authority to do so. It defines restricted buildings and grounds in part as any area where the president or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be visiting.
Then-Vice President Mike Pence traveled to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to preside over Congress as it certified the results of the 2020 election.
Under Griffin’s interpretation of the statute, “a defendant would be entitled to acquittal so long as he waited until a sufficiently strong gust of wind, a soaking downpour—or even a less scrupulous prior intruder—disposed of law enforcement tape, fencing, or signage before he entered a sensitive area in full awareness he was not lawfully authorized to do so,” U.S. Circuit Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard wrote for the majority. “We decline to read the statute to allow a mob to de-restrict an officially restricted area encompassing persons under Secret Service protection.”
The evidence offered during Griffin’s trial was sufficient to show the Capitol grounds were restricted on Jan. 6 when Griffin entered them, the judge said, with Griffin knowing about the restriction in part because he viewed the area the night before and, when he scaled a wall around the time of the Capitol breach, landed on trampled fencing and signs. Griffin also said about a week after the breach that “there was some fencing up” and the crowd “just pushed through.”
The plain reading of the law only means that a person violates the law if he or she knows that grounds are restricted and still enters them, according to the majority.
U.S. Circuit Judge Judith Rogers joined Pillard.
In a dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas said that a defendant must also know that a person such as the president will be or is visiting the grounds.
“In my view, statutory text, history, and basic interpretive presumptions all point in the same direction: To be convicted of knowingly entering a ’restricted building or grounds,' the defendant must know that the area in question satisfies the statutory definition of that term,” he wrote.
He added later: “Given its erroneous legal ruling, the district court did not make a finding whether Griffin knew that the Vice President was still present at the Capitol when Griffin trespassed. Some evidence suggests Griffin did not know, such as his later, mistaken statement that the Vice President had already certified the election before Griffin arrived at the Capitol. Because an essential element of the section 1752(a)(1) charge thus remains unresolved, I would vacate Griffin’s conviction and remand for further findings or proceedings.”
