Proud Boys Leader Sentenced to 17 Years in Prison Over January 6 Riot

For the Proud Boys, the hammer has fallen. Joe Biggs, a frontrunner of the far-right male  group, acquired a 17-year sentence for his actions through the January 6 Capitol riot in 2021. Enrique Tarrio, the group’s chairman, continues to be awaiting sentencing however was equally convicted of sedition, conspiracy to hinder the 2020 election’s certification, and different severe crimes earlier this yr.

Whereas 17 years constitutes a prolonged jail sentence, it’s significantly shorter than what the federal government requested: Prosecutors wished 33 years for Biggs. That is in step with the federal government’s view that Biggs dedicated an act of terrorism; the prosecution requested U.S. District Decide Timothy Kelly to use a terrorism enhancement to the sentence.

“Biggs dedicated a criminal offense of terrorism on January 6, and the Court docket mustn’t hesitate to impose a sentence that displays the seriousness of the crime and its risk to our nation—as mirrored within the Sentencing Tips,” wrote the prosecutors of their sentencing suggestion doc.

In court docket, prosecutors argued that Biggs’ actions definitely constituted terrorism as a result of, although January 6 didn’t contain widespread destruction—exploding buildings, huge casualties—its impression on the nation’s collective scarring is like that of a terrorist assault, they mentioned. Assistant U.S. Lawyer Jason McCullough argued that the psychological fallout from January 6 is “no completely different than the act of a spectacular bombing of a constructing.”

The decide quibbled barely with this argument—accusing prosecutors of “overstat[ing]” their case—however in the end agreed in precept that “whereas blowing up a constructing in some metropolis someplace is a really unhealthy act… the constitutional second we have been in that day is one thing that’s so delicate that it deserves a major sentence.”

This doesn’t appear overly scientific. Prosecutors mentioned Biggs dedicated an act of terrorism akin to blowing up a constructing and that he ought to get 33 years in jail. The decide mentioned, Effectively that is form of an exaggeration, so… how about half that a few years?

Biggs and different January 6 contributors undoubtedly dedicated crimes—vandalism, trespassing, and in some circumstances, violence in opposition to law enforcement officials. They need to be held accountable for the mayhem that they prompted. However prosecutors who implicitly accuse them of staging one thing alongside the traces of one other 9/11 have gotten over their skis. Many Individuals have deep embarrassment over the spectacle of January 6, and rightly so; they don’t take into account the riot to be wherever close to as severe as a blown-up constructing.

The federal government got here down additional laborious on Biggs as a result of he’s a frontrunner of the Proud Boys, and likewise as a result of he has navy coaching; he ought to have identified, prosecutors argued, that he was in a singular place to really provoke violence and destruction as he led the gang to the barricades and tore down elements of the fencing.

Once more, he inarguably dedicated crimes and should face the implications. However rounding up his actions to terrorism is frankly giving the Proud Boys’ plans extra credit score than they deserve. Damaged home windows and defiled desks have been by no means going to forestall Joe Biden from taking workplace. If there was a conspiracy to steal the election, it unfolded within the weeks main as much as January 6, as President Donald Trump and his acolytes allegedly tried to intervene with electoral processes underway within the states.

What occurred on January 6 was a largely spontaneous burst of property destruction and restricted violence that interrupted Congress’ certification of the votes—a riot, not a deliberate riot. As Motive‘s Jacob Sullum wrote when Biggs and Tarrio have been first convicted, the time period riot “implies a stage of planning and group that doesn’t match the chaotic actuality of what occurred that day.”

Seventeen years is an especially very long time in jail; solely the worst of the worst, probably the most harmful and irredeemable form of individuals, should languish for such a time. It does the nation no good to fake that what transpired on January 6 was a terrorist assault, extremely and successfully organized by a paramilitary group, that got here inside hanging distance of really stopping the peaceable switch of energy.