Overview
- Federal court records show the Justice Department has charged more than three dozen people under the rarely used 19th‑century law and filed nearly 50 additional related indictments across cases in multiple states.
- The statute, which criminalizes conspiracy to impede or injure an officer, carries up to six years in prison and had been rarely invoked before its recent reappearance in protest‑linked prosecutions.
- Recent prosecutions have produced different results: convictions in a Spokane blockade case, dismissals in a Chicago matter that raised misconduct claims, and the resignation of an acting U.S. attorney who declined to sign an indictment.
- Legal experts and civil‑rights groups say the charge is being stretched to sweep in people based on association or proximity rather than on personal violent or destructive acts, which they say raises First Amendment and due‑process concerns.
- The Justice Department says the cases target people who used force or obstructed officers, and observers say the prosecutions could chill organizing and push more legal challenges and scrutiny of federal charging choices.