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The nearly 900 Capitol insurrection-related arrests moving their way through the court system make up an average of 40% of all appearances on the District of Columbia District Court calendar each week.<\/p>\n
Alongside the routine federal cases the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia would otherwise handle \u2014 dealing with murder, kidnapping, fraud, drug trafficking and child pornography, among other crimes \u2014 are a flood of status and sentencing hearings, evidence negotiations, jury selection proceedings and trials for those arrested across the country for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s little flexibility in the schedule to accommodate delays, and those that inevitably happen can reverberate through the system, affecting other criminal and civil cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cJan. 6 has created a massive traffic jam\u201d on the court calendar, Judge Amit Mehta said in early September when he denied Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes\u2019 request to delay his trial for 90 days to bring on a new lawyer. If the trial didn\u2019t occur as planned, the judge said, Rhodes and his co-defendants would probably have to wait until next summer before Mehta could fit their multi-week proceedings into his schedule.<\/p>\n
While many defendants have taken plea deals, about half are still making their way through the court system. In an Oct. 6 statement, the Justice Department said that 412 people had pleaded guilty to Jan. 6-related crimes and 26 <\/a>had <\/a>been found guilty at trial.<\/a> <\/p>\n And though the number of arrests has slowed, the Justice Department still announces multiple new arrests each week, and hundreds more rioters have been identified but not yet charged. Federal prosecutors have told D.C. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell that it\u2019s \u201cnot an unreasonable expectation\u201d that more than 2,000 cases could be filed.<\/p>\n Resources have been moved to Washington to help. The Justice Department has tapped prosecutors and investigators from across the country to help filter through evidence and bring cases in the D.C. District Court. Public defenders from nearly every state have been recruited to ensure defendants have representation, and lawyers have been tapped to provide services pro bono.<\/p>\n The department has also asked Congress to approve an additional $34 million<\/a> this year to help cover the cost of the prosecutions.<\/p>\n But judges cannot pick what comes across their desk. And there are a finite number of judges on the D.C. court, where all of the Jan. 6 cases are being heard, and there is limited time in which to schedule those cases.<\/p>\n Additional judges cannot be recruited from other districts to help those on the D.C. court, which includes 14 district judges and seven judges who are on a form of partial retirement known as senior status. There was already significant backlog in the federal court system before Jan. 6 due to delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors. <\/p>\n \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t surprise me if there are other types of cases and investigations that are either not getting formally charged or being delayed in their investigation because of the Jan. 6 cases,\u201d said Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson.<\/p>\n Processing an avalanche of evidence, including cellphone records, police radio and body camera footage, along with videos and photos rioters posted on social media, had already caused substantial delays. The government has tried to make much of that information available to every defendant\u2019s legal team<\/a> through a single database \u2014 a process that took over a year \u2014 so that defendants cannot argue they didn\u2019t have access to evidence that might have proven their innocence.<\/p>\n Recognizing the sheer scope of evidence and the number of cases, judges have generally been willing to give prosecutors and defense teams ample time to prepare for trials, but there have been indications \u2014 such as Mehta\u2018s refusal to delay the Oath Keepers trial again \u2014 that the jurists are only willing to go so far.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the number of cases, it\u2019ll be more difficult for defendants to engage in gameplay when the courts do not have the patience, and frankly the flexibility, to just let cases go on and on,\u201d Levenson said. \u201cThe judges have adopted an all-business attitude, because that\u2019s the only way to keep things on the track.\u201d<\/p>\n Mehta had previously resisted efforts in early August to delay the Oath Keepers trial, noting that Rhodes\u2019 co-defendants had been detained for a year and a half and that trials were stacking up on his calendar.<\/p>\n \u201cI literally have trials lined up, including in some of these other cases involving these same prosecutors, through next year into the fall. And if we move this case into January, I\u2019ve got to bump other trials and other defendants, including people who are detained who\u2019ve been waiting for trial,\u201d Mehta said, adding: \u201cJust looking ahead over the horizon, if I move this case into January, it is going to wreak havoc on my docket.\u201d<\/p>\n But delays in a multi-defendant trial are inevitable. Rhodes recently caught COVID-19, delaying the trial for several days.<\/p>\n The schedule is so full in part because even cases likely to end in a plea deal require multiple appearances before a judge to resolve arguments about what evidence can be used, where each side stands in their preparations for trial or a plea deal, or what questions will be asked to weed out jurors.<\/p>\n The majority of Jan. 6 defendants who have accepted plea deals were charged with misdemeanors. Nearly 100 others pleaded guilty to felonies. Many of the cases that remain are complex, including the seditious conspiracy charges brought against the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Their trials are expected to be completed this year.<\/p>\n For all but one of the last six weeks, approximately 40% of the cases on the District Court calendar were related to Jan. 6 defendants. That included several instances in which multiple defendants appeared at the same time before a single judge.<\/p>\n Some Jan. 6 defendants have appeared before a judge over two dozen times while waiting over two years for their trials. Most defendants have been released on bail; only about two dozen have been held pending trial. <\/p>\n The 76 Jan. 6-related entries on last week\u2019s calendar include two days of the Oath Keepers trial, a plea hearing for a man accused of confronting police outside the Senate chamber, and a status conference for two people accused of helping another rioter steal a laptop from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s office.<\/p>\n California civil attorney Marc Lewis, who isn\u2019t representing any Jan. 6 defendants, says that when a judge\u2019s schedule is so full, lawyers feel compelled to recommend that their clients waive a jury trial and perhaps accept arbitration for the sake of efficiency.<\/p>\n \u201cThe choke at every single juncture is so bad that it makes it really difficult to litigate a case,\u201d Lewis said.<\/p>\n