The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to take up the appeal of a former Drug Enforcement Administration special agent who is being prosecuted for carrying his service weapon on U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.
The court’s denial of Mr. Ibrahim’s petition means his case will proceed on three federal charges: entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, carrying a firearm on Capitol grounds, and injuries to property for climbing on a statue at the edge of Capitol grounds.
Mr. Ibrahim’s criminal case was put on hold by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly while the Supreme Court petition was pending. In March, Judge Kelly denied a motion to dismiss Count 3 of the indictment, which charged Mr. Ibrahim under 40 U.S. Code § 5104 for having a firearm on Capitol grounds.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed Mr. Ibrahim’s challenge of Judge Kelly’s ruling on June 2 and denied a rehearing of the dismissal on Sept. 11.
Mr. Ibrahim’s appeal argued that even though he was off-duty on Jan. 6, he was legally authorized by federal law to carry his service weapon on Capitol grounds. DEA regulations encourage agents to carry their weapons and credentials at all times, the appeals petition said.
“My gun was never unholstered. I never pointed my badge or gun at anyone.”
Because Mr. Ibrahim has not yet gone to trial, he still has many options for appeal, Ms. Medvin told The Epoch Times in a statement.
“Unlike defendants seeking certiorari post-conviction, Mark was seeking redress in the middle of a pending case—on the issue of being forced to go to trial on a charge to which, we argued, he has a type of prosecutorial immunity by virtue of an exemption within the statute itself,” she said.
“Mark Ibrahim is in an interesting position—while his interlocutory appeal was denied, he is only mid-way through his case,” Ms. Medvin said. “Mark hasn’t been tried or convicted. His ability to appeal a variety of legal issues is still ahead of him. Mark’s doors are still open.”
Obstruction Appeals
The Supreme Court did not issue a decision on petitions by three Jan. 6 defendants who are challenging the U.S. Department of Justice’s novel use of an evidence-tampering law—18 U.S. Code §1512(c)(2)—to prosecute defendants, including former President Donald Trump, for felony obstruction of Congress.The petitions of Edward Jacob Lang, 28, of New York, Garret A. Miller, 37, of Richardson, Texas, and Joseph Wayne Fischer, 57, of Jonestown, Pa., were scheduled for the Court’s Dec. 8 private conference. No decision was announced in the Court’s Dec. 11 regular list of orders.
A decision could still come before the end of December, or the cases could be re-listed for the Court’s Jan. 5 conference.
United States District Judge Carl Nichols threw out the §1512(c)(2) obstruction charge against Mr. Miller on March 7, 2022, Mr. Fischer on March 17, 2022, and Mr. Lang on June 7, 2022.
The subsection of 18 § U.S.C. was approved by Congress as part of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 to close a loophole in the law that was discovered in the wake of the Enron corporate fraud and accounting scandal.
The DOJ appealed all three cases to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A three-judge panel issued a fractured ruling on April 7, 2023, that conditionally reversed Judge Nichols but created a great deal of confusion. All three defendants filed appeal petitions with the Supreme Court in the following months.
