A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of some Jan. 6 rioters will shorten the prison sentences for at least two people arrested in Tennessee, their attorneys said after the decision was handed down Friday .
Voting 6-3, the nation's highest court ruled in Fischer v. United States that federal prosecutors had applied an obstruction statute too broadly in the case of a Pennsylvania police officer who entered the U.S. Capitol and assaulted a federal officer during the attack on Jan. 6, 2021. The court decided that the charge of obstructing or impeding an official proceeding could only be applied in cases where the defendant had destroyed records, documents or other things used in an official proceeding.
The Washington Post reported federal prosecutors had charged more than 350 Jan. 6 defendants with that charge, although only some are expected to see an impact on their sentences. Former President Donald Trump is facing two obstruction-related charges as part of a four-count indictment related to Jan. 6, but it's unclear how Friday's decision will affect his case.
Two attorneys contacted Friday expect the greatest impact of the Fischer ruling will come to people for whom the obstruction charge is their only felony conviction related to the Jan. 6 attack.
"Because once the (obstruction) count disappears, the other charges are not that significant and their sentences are going to be greatly reduced," said Jerry Ray Smith Jr., a defense attorney from Washington.
Two people arrested in Tennessee appear to meet that criteria: Matthew Bledsoe, a Memphis business owner, and Lisa Marie Eisenhart, the mother of Eric Munchel, the Nashville bartender nicknamed "zip-tie guy" after an infamous photograph caught him stalking the Senate gallery carrying zip ties.
Bledsoe, who is 40 and a resident of Olive Branch, Mississippi, was sentenced to 48 months in prison in October 2022 for obstruction of an official proceeding, while he was also sentenced to 12 months for a handful of misdemeanors to run concurrently with the longer sentence. When the Fischer case reached the Supreme Court, Smith, Bledsoe's lawyer, asked for his release until a decision in that case was reached. Bledsoe was let out of prison in January.
Smith doesn't anticipate Bledsoe going back to prison because he has already served the full sentence for his misdemeanor charges.
Washington attorney Greg Smith said Friday's decision "undoubtedly will" affect Eisenhart's case.
Eisenhart, 60, from Woodstock, Georgia, was sentenced in September to 30 months in prison on the obstruction charge. Eisenhart was also convicted of four misdemeanor charges for trespassing and disorderly conduct, for which she was sentenced to 12 months to run concurrently with her 30-month sentence. She was released from prison in January pending the outcome in the Fischer case decided Friday.
Smith expects Eisenhart will get a new hearing where Judge Royce C. Lamberth will determine her sentence for the misdemeanor offenses, which Smith said Lamberth indicated will not exceed 12 months.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was disappointed by the Supreme Court's decision, which he said "limits an important federal statute," but he emphasized that the ruling's impact will be limited.
"The vast majority of the more than 1,400 defendants charged for their illegal actions on January 6 will not be affected by this decision," Garland said in a news release . "For the cases affected by today’s decision, the Department will take appropriate steps to comply with the Court’s ruling."
Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMe a lins .
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: SCOTUS ruling could reduce sentences for two Jan. 6 defendants with Tennessee ties
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