The judge overseeing the trials of some January 6 defendants has agreed to postpone a case until after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as the case may become moot.
Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, said Thursday that defendant William Pope’s case could be pushed to next year.
Pope, from Topeka, Kansas, argued that holding his trial over charges relating to the riot at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, before Trump takes office could lead to “a dangerous cycle of escalating retribution as control of the government continues changing hands.”
The defendant, who has self-represented since his arrest shortly after the riot, is accused of entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct and obstructing law enforcement.
Shawnee County Department of Corrections via AP/Getty Images
At a status hearing Thursday, Contreras reportedly said he did not wish to waste time or the resources of a jury holding a trial that may not go anywhere, should the president-elect choose to issue pardons.
Trump suggested during his campaign that he would look to pardon those convicted of crimes relating to January 6, when hundreds of his supporters protested the certification of the 2020 election results declaring President Joe Biden the winner.
“In delivering both an electoral victory and popular vote majority, the American people gave President Trump a mandate to carry out the agenda he campaigned on, which includes ending the January 6 prosecutions and pardoning those who exercised First Amendment rights at the Capitol,” Pope wrote in an earlier filing.
He also suggested that special counsel Jack Smith’s decision to vacate a briefing schedule relating to his cases against the president-elect should influence the judge’s decision on his case, which the U.S. Department of Justice pushed back on.
“The need to ‘determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy’ is not similarly implicated in this case, where the defendant is a private citizen,” the government said in its response. “Courts have denied similar motions to continue other January 6 trials on this basis.”
The judge appeared to decide otherwise, pushing back Pope’s trial into 2025.
“No new date has been set yet, but we’ll have a status hearing in 30 days,” Pope posted on X, formerly Twitter, following the decision. “Unfortunately, the prosecutor’s facial expressions won’t make it into the court transcript.”
As of October 6, 2024, about 1,561 people had been charged in connection with the Capitol riot, including 590 charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement, 979 had pleaded guilty and 210 had been found guilty through U.S. District Court trials.