Texas Man Convicted in First Jan. 6 Trial

“He stated, ‘Should you flip me in, you’re a traitor,’” Jackson Reffitt testified as his father sat throughout the courtroom, unable to satisfy his eye. “‘And traitors get shot.’”

Mr. Reffitt’s lawyer, William L. Welch, placed on a muted and abbreviated protection, beginning with a gap assertion that lasted not far more than three minutes. He known as no witnesses and offered no proof, however argued to the jury that prosecutors had rushed to cost his consumer, who, he claimed, had by no means bodily assaulted the police.

A wild card within the case is whether or not Decide Dabney L. Friedrich decides in days to come back to toss out the federal government’s central obstruction cost in opposition to Mr. Reffitt — one the federal government has utilized in lots of of comparable instances as a substitute of extra politically fraught crimes like sedition or riot.

Within the months main as much as the trial, a number of protection legal professionals, together with Mr. Welch, challenged the usage of the obstruction regulation, claiming that prosecutors had stretched it past its unique intent as a strategy to curb actions like shredding paperwork or tampering with witnesses in congressional inquiries.

However 10 federal judges — together with Decide Friedrich — have upheld the statute, saying it may be used.

Just one federal choose in Washington, Carl J. Nichols, has stated the regulation doesn’t apply to the Capitol assault, dismissing the depend within the case of one other rioter from Texas on Monday.

Decide Friedrich dominated earlier than the trial started that she would possibly toss the cost if she didn’t imagine the proof supported the declare that Mr. Reffitt had acted “corruptly” in disrupting Congress’s work, as required by the textual content of the regulation.

To that finish, prosecutors sought to indicate that he had acted corruptly, not solely introducing proof that he confronted officers exterior the Capitol, but in addition that he waved the gang on to proceed their assault on the constructing even after he was subdued.