Three years after the Capitol attack, federal judges in Washington have sentenced more than half of the roughly 1,200 people charged in the largest investigation in U.S. history and have handed down lighter punishments for Jan. 6 assault convictions compared with similar assault cases nationally, a Washington Post analysis shows.
Judges have ordered prison time for nearly every defendant convicted of a felony and some jail time to about half of those convicted of misdemeanors.
But in the vast majority of the more than 700 sentencings to date, judges have issued punishments below government guidelines and prosecutors’ requests. Though more than 60 percent of the defendants sentenced so far have received jail or prison terms, the judges have gone below federal sentencing guidelines in 67 percent of the cases, Post data shows. Nationally, federal judges go below the advisory guidelines about 51 percent of the time, according to federal statistics.
I mean, the fact that we don’t bring out the gallows for the leaders of this insurrection is the biggest tragedy.