January 6th prison sentences were always heading in this direction
For months there has been an extraordinary amount of angst about the supposed “slap on the wrist” prison sentences that January 6th participants have been receiving. Many of the cases that have reached sentencing thus far have ended up resulting in prison sentences of just a couple months. This has led to widespread narratives about how they’re “getting away with it all.”
But here’s the thing. As Palmer Report has tried to explain from the start, the first January 6th criminal cases to reach the sentencing stage were generally the straightforward cases in which minor participants had decided to promptly plead guilty because they only committed infractions such as nonviolent trespassing and just wanted to get it over with. So we saw a lot of sixty day prison sentences and such, because these were the January 6th sideshow people.
Now this week we’re seeing more serious January 6th participants being sentenced in more complex criminal cases. Scott Fairlamb, who assaulted the police, was just sentenced to more than three years in prison. And this week prosecutors formally sought a more than four year sentence against the QAnon Shaman, arguing that he acted as a ringleader.
These still may not be the kinds of prison sentences that some observers are looking for. But it’s becoming clear that while the most minor of participants with the smallest infractions are going to prison for mere months, the more serious participants who committed more severe infractions are going to prison for years. So much for everyone getting a slap on the wrist.
In fact, as we get into upcoming sentencing hearings for January 6th participants who committed even more serious crimes, we’ll see even longer prison sentences. Keep in mind that some of the most egregious participants will insist on going to trial first, which means their sentencing won’t come until further down the road. So the longest 1/6 prison sentences of all likely won’t be handed out until well into next year. And this is before getting to eventual conspiracy charges against people who orchestrated the Capitol attack but didn’t physically participate in it.
Palmer Report told everyone from the start that this was how it was eventually going to play out. The shame of it is that so many other media outlets and social media pundits passed up the opportunity to educate their audiences about how this was going to play out, an instead opted to play into the public’s largely mistaken outrage over the earliest January 6th prison sentences.
