[Lgpolicy] The Supreme Court will weigh in on the January 6 insurrection. What could possibly go wrong?

[Francis M. Hult via Lgpolicy]

Vox

The Supreme Court will weigh in on the January 6 insurrection. What could
possibly go wrong?

Much of the disagreement between judges who read the statute broadly and
judges like Nichols and Katsas turns on the proper meaning of the word
“otherwise.”

[...]

As Judge Florence Pan, the author of the DC Circuit’s Fischer decision,
notes in her opinion, Katsas’s reading of this word “otherwise” is at odds
with at least two dictionaries. She quotes from the Oxford English
Dictionary’s definition of the word (“[i]n another way or ways; in a
different manner; by other means; in other words; differently”) and from
Black’s Law Dictionary’s definition (“[i]n a different manner; in another
way, or in other ways”).

Yet, while Katsas’s reading of the obstruction statute is counterintuitive,
it is less ridiculous than it might seem. The Supreme Court has sometimes
said that seemingly unambiguous statutes can be read in ways that are,
well, not the same way that an ordinary English speaker would read the
law’s text.

Full story:
https://www.vox.com/scotus/2024/3/25/24108640/supreme-court-january-6-insurrection-fischer-united-states-obstruct
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