In a victory for the Justice Department and against commonsense, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that merely being in the Capitol was enough to merit conviction for “disorderly” or “disruptive” conduct.
A three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that they were participants if people were aware of what was happening around them.
“A lone hiker on a mountaintop can sing at the top of his lungs without disturbing a soul; a patron in a library cannot,” the panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in an 18-page opinion authored by Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of George H.W. Bush. “It is entirely appropriate to clap and cheer when a keynote speaker steps to the podium but to do so once the room has fallen quiet and he has begun to speak would ordinarily be disruptive. Thus, in determining whether an act is disorderly, the…
