The precise number and percentage of Capitol defendants who are released versus in detention changes often, as new alleged rioters are arrested, others secure release, and a few risk re-arrest for violating the conditions of their release. At least 56 of those defendants remained in detention. Of 398 defendants listed on the justice department’s Capitol breach case site as of 10 May, at least 330 were listed on the site, or in federal court records, as released from custody.
The US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia declined to confirm how many Capitol defendants were currently in pre-trial detention, noting that the number “has the potential to fluctuate frequently based on ongoing detention decisions”.īy mid-May, at least 440 people had been arrested on charges related to the 6 January Capitol breach, according to the justice department, including at least 125 charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
“The kind of sensitivity the courts have shown to the Capitol defendants’ claims for relief – I wish some of that sensitivity would be shown more broadly.” “For my Black and brown clients, it feels like they have to meet such an impossibly high threshold to be released,” Miller, a University of Chicago law professor, said. The problem, they said, was not that judges were making the wrong call in releasing Capitol defendants, but that judges were not making similar calls for the majority of people in the federal system. Zunkel and a colleague, Judith P Miller, both former federal defense attorneys, said that the level of skepticism and care federal judges were bringing to the decision of whether Capitol defendants were truly dangerous enough to keep incarcerated was not at all the norm. “We have a problem with our system, something has gone wildly wrong, if we have a 75% detention rate nationwide, and we have a subset where we have a more than 70% release rate,” she said. More than 96% of the people charged with federal immigration crimes are Hispanic, and more than 70% of those charged with federal drug crimes are Hispanic and Black, Zunkel said, citing federal sentencing data. Zunkel, a former federal defense attorney, argued that it was absolutely fair to ask why prosecutors and judges were making different detention decisions for drug and immigration cases than for the people charged with participating in the 6 January attack, who are more than 90% white. The January 6 defendants are charged with a variety of obstruction, assault, and trespassing charges. “The majority of federal defendants are charged with immigration or drug crimes, both of which are typically accompanied by detention. “Comparing the per cent of January 6 defendants detained with the overall federal average is comparing apples and oranges,” a spokesperson for the office said. Trump supporters pose with statues inside the Capitol Rotunda.
The US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which is prosecuting the cases, said in a statement that the alleged Capitol rioters were facing very different kinds of charges than most people in the federal system. “The majority of people in the federal system are people of color.” Most of these people are white,” said Erica Zunkel, associate director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. Many Capitol defendants are being released ahead of trial because they are facing relatively low-level charges, experts said, though other factors, including racial bias, may also play a role. The disparity in pre-trial detention rates highlights what legal experts said was a broader development in the 6 January cases: the likelihood that a substantial swath of the alleged rioters may not serve any prison time at all, even if they are convicted or plead guilty. Multiple alleged members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, two groups facing the most serious conspiracy charges related to their alleged plans for violence, have been released before trial, though some prominent leaders in these groups remain in custody. Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man photographed with his foot on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, was released in late April, nearly two months after screaming during a court hearing that “it’s not fair” that he was still in custody when “everybody else who did things much worse are already home”. Eric Munchel, known as “ Zip Tie Guy”, who was allegedly photographed wearing tactical gear and carrying wrist restraints in the Senate chamber, was released in late March, along with his mother, after an appeals court questioned whether he posed any danger outside the specific context of 6 January.
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