Appeals Court Upholds Year Long Sentence For Jan. 6 Misdemeanor Defendant

On Jan. 5, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled to uphold a 12-month prison sentence handed down to Jan. 6 defendant Russell Alford. Alford, who was convicted of four misdemeanors for his participation in the riot, challenged the “reasonableness of his sentence” as well as “the sufficiency of the evidence to support two of his convictions, both of which charged him with engaging in ‘disorderly or disruptive conduct’” because he was not violent or destructive upon entering the Capitol building. 

The appeals panel ruled to affirm Alford’s conviction and sentence, ruling that a jury could reasonably find that his participation in the riot and presence in the Capitol, albeit nonviolent, directly “contributed to the disruption of Congress’s electoral certification and jeopardized public safety.”

The appeals court panel also found that Alford’s sentence was not only within sentencing guidelines, but also on the low end of the range, and therefore the district court did not abuse its sentencing discretion. The panel wrote, “To warrant reversal, the district court must clearly overstep its bounds. It did not do so here.”

You can read the decision here or below: