An Obama-appointed federal judge seemingly wants harsher punishments and steeper fines for those who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6 during a sentencing hearing for a man who pled guilty to joining the Capitol riot last week.
Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell has questioned no-prison misdemeanor plea deals as an insufficient “deterrence” against individuals who participated in “terrorizing members of Congress.”
Additionally, Judge Howell suggested Monday that fines for Capitol breachers are far too low, claiming American taxpayers are footing a $500 million bill in damages — an ambiguous estimate — while U.S. prosecutors are apparently asking defendants to pay only $1.5 million in restitution.
Specifically, according to The Washington Post, Howell is displeased with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington seeking to require $2,000 in each felony case and $500 in each misdemeanor case.
The judge “challenged the toughness” of the Biden DOJ by highlighting a plea hearing for a Colorado Springs man who admitted to one of four nonviolent misdemeanor counts of picketing at the U.S. Capitol, the Post reported, adding that “Howell has already asked in another defendant’s plea hearing whether no-prison misdemeanor plea deals offered by the government are too lenient for individuals involved in ‘terrorizing members of Congress,’ asking pointedly whether the government had ‘any concern about deterrence?'”
“I’m accustomed to the government being fairly aggressive in terms of fraud when there have been damages that accrue from a criminal act for the restitution amount,” Howell said.
“Where we have Congress acting, appropriating all this money due directly to the events of January 6th, I have found the damage amount of less than $1.5 million — when all of us American taxpayers are about to foot the bill for close to half a billion dollars — a little bit surprising.”
The judge’s estimate of half a billion dollars is an apparent reference to a $2.1 billion security bill passed by Congress in July, the Post noted. Back in June, however, prosecutors estimated damage to the Capitol to total “approximately $1,495,326.55.”
As of last month, a total of 500 individuals had been arrested and charged with crimes related to Capitol breach, though none have yet been charged with “treason” or “sedition.”
Most Trump supporters who breached the U.S. Capitol were “trespassing,” despite the persistent left-wing hyperbole over the threat posed by January 6th “insurrectionists,” as Politico reported:
Although prosecutors have loaded up their charging documents with language about the existential threat of the insurrection to the republic, the actions of many of the individual rioters often boiled down to trespassing. And judges have wrestled with how aggressively to lump those cases in with those of the more sinister suspects.
Still, Republicans and some Democrats have grown concerned about the harsh treatment of many Capitol rioters, particularly with regard to solitary confinement.
According to The Washington Examiner, “Many participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots are being held in solitary confinement in Washington, D.C.’s city jail, a situation that’s drawing scrutiny from Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bob Casey and the American Civil Liberties Union.”
“After Jan. 6, Washington, D.C., jail officials decided that all Capitol riot detainees be held in ‘restrictive housing’ as a safety measure for the accused. However, the accused found themselves in solitary confinement 23 hours a day before their trials even started,” the Examiner explained.
“I do not believe in solitary confinement for extended periods of time for anyone,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
“Obviously, in any instance, I think solitary confinement is concerning,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA).
“Prolonged solitary confinement is torture and certainly should not be used as a punitive tool to intimidate or extract cooperation. We’re pleased to see that message is getting through to Senators,” Tammie Gregg, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, told the Examiner.
Republican Senators Lindsey Graham (SC) and Rand Paul (KY) objected, too.
“Nobody should be detained indefinitely in America for domestic law purposes. So they deserve their day in court,” Graham told the Examiner.
“I think the standard for justice should be the same for everyone. Whether you are trying to mob and attack people in D.C. or Minneapolis,” Sen. Paul said. “Whether you break the laws here, it seems like there’s more than one standard, but we should apply the same standard to everyone.”