Prosecutors: January 6 defendants should expect jail time

All of these factors, Birney wrote in the record, should result in a sentence of probation only.

Few of the Jan. 6 defendants have so far been convicted, with Paul Hodgkins – the first felony case to reach the sentencing stage – facing an eight-month prison sentence, the longest handed down by judges to this day. Anna Morgan Lloyd, the first accused convicted on January 6, received 36 months probation for a guilty plea of ​​misdemeanor from Judge Royce Lamberth. Judge Thomas Hogan has sentenced Jessica and Joshua Bustle, a couple charged with minor offenses for entering the Capitol, to house arrest and probation, in part because they are awaiting the next birth of a child.

Like prosecutors, however, Lamberth stressed that other defendants should not necessarily expect probation for participating in the Capitol breach.

“I don’t want to give the impression that probation is the automatic outcome here because it won’t,” Lamberth said on Morgan-Lloyd’s sentencing, a comment Birney pointed out in his sentencing recommendation. for Ehrke.

Hogan echoed this sentiment as well, telling the Bustles: “I think the presumption should be that these offenses were an attack on our democracy and that the prison sentence is generally – should be expected. “

None of the January 6 defendants facing the gravest charges, including dozens accused of assaulting police officers and a growing contingent accused of plotting to block certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, n ‘was convicted again.

Prosecutors say misdemeanor defendants are responsible for some of the most egregious crimes committed that day, in part because the size of the crowd helped cover the most dangerous participants in the attack.

“The defendant is appearing before this tribunal to be convicted of a misdemeanor, but her conduct on January 6, like that of dozens of other defendants, took place against the backdrop of a large and violent riot that relied on the number to overwhelm law enforcement, violate the Capitol and disrupt proceedings, “Birney noted.” Without her actions alongside so many others, the riot likely would have failed.