https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/judge-howell-capitol-riot-case/2021/10/28/8f6da2c2-3809-11ec-9bc4-86107e7b0ab1_story.html
The chief judge presiding over the federal court in Washington on Thursday unleashed a blistering critique of the Justice Department’s prosecution of Capitol rioters, saying fiery rhetoric about the event’s horror did not match plea offers to minor charges.
“No wonder parts of the public in the U.S. are confused about whether what happened on January 6 at the Capitol was simply a petty offense of trespassing with some disorderliness, or shocking criminal conduct that represented a grave threat to our democratic norms,” Judge Beryl A. Howell said in court Thursday. “Let me make my view clear: The rioters were not mere protesters.”
While she and other judges have expressed similar concerns before, this was Howell’s first time sentencing a rioter and her first chance to fully air her views and demand answers from prosecutors. She took the opportunity, spending over an hour interrogating prosecutors on the decision to let Tennessee video game developer Jack Jesse Griffith plead guilty to the misdemeanor of parading inside the Capitol.
Why, she asked, when prosecutors called the riot an “attack on democracy . . . unparalleled in American history,” were Griffith and other participants facing the same charge as nonviolent protesters who routinely disrupt congressional hearings?
“It seems like a bit of a disconnect,” Howell said — “muddled”
and “almost schizophrenic.”
The parading charge carries a sentence of at most six months, with no supervised release.
“Is it the government’s view that the members of the mob that engaged in the Capitol attack on January 6 were simply trespassers?” Howell asked incredulously. “Is general deterrence going to be served by letting rioters who broke into the Capitol, overran the police . . . broke into the building through windows and doors . . . resolve their criminal liability through petty offense pleas?”
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After asking for probationary sentences in several cases, the government sought a three-month jail sentence for Griffith. Howell questioned what distinguished those cases from this one. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitra Jafary-Hariri said prosecutors gave some defendants credit for early acceptance of responsibility. Griffith, she added, displayed a lack of remorse after the attack and continued to spread false election claims.
“Probation should not be the norm,” Howell said, but added that Griffith should not be punished more than others who engaged in similar conduct. Instead, she put him on probation for 36 months.
“My hands are tied,” Howell said in frustration. “In all my years on the bench, I’ve never been in this position before, and it’s all due to the government, despite calling this the crime of the century, resolving it with a . . . petty offense.”
