January 6 arrests rose 24% in 2024, 75% in past 2 years, DOJ report says

In what is likely to be the penultimate report of its kind, the U.S. Department of Justice says 1,572 people have been arrested for alleged Jan. 6 crimes, a 24% increase during 2024.

In its 47-month update, the DOJ said the FBI arrested 11 new Jan. 6 suspects between Nov. 6 and Dec. 6, 2024. The 1,572 total represents a 24.3% increase in 2024 and 75% during the past two years.

Just as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to issue pardons for those arrested, charged, and convicted on Jan. 6 counts, District of Columbia judges are doubling down on issuing sentences and refusing requests to delay sentencing hearings.

'My wife Jalise is disabled. She needs a total knee replacement.'

Jalise Middleton’s request to delay reporting to the federal Bureau of Prisons for her Jan. 6 sentence due to knee surgery was denied by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss. Judge Moss said plenty of people have served sentences while in wheelchairs and that BOP facilities are equipped to handle medical needs.

“Although Ms. Middleton stated that her condition worsened in the last two weeks, her knee has been problem for years, yet she waited until a week before her surrender date to schedule the long-required surgery,” Judge Moss wrote in a four-page order denying a prison delay.

“Among other things, on October 22, 2024, the court allowed defendants to self-surrender in order to get their affairs in order, and, to the extent necessary (and urgent), knee surgery would seem to qualify as such an endeavor,” Moss wrote. “Had Ms. Middleton taken advantage of this opportunity, she could have had the surgery many weeks — as opposed to days — before her surrender date.”

Moss ordered Jalise and husband, Mark Middleton, to report Dec. 17 to two prison facilities in Texas. “Yes my wife Jalise is disabled. She needs a total knee replacement,” Middleton posted on X. “Two month delay would not cause a hardship on the interest of the public.”

Jalise and Mark Middleton of Forestburg, Texas, before their sentencing hearing in federal court on an array of Jan. 6 charges. U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss sentenced her to 20 months in prison and him to 30 months. Photo courtesy of Jenny Cudd

The Middletons were convicted of assaulting, resisting, or impeding two police officers, civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct, engaging in physical violence, and several other related misdemeanors.

The couple, married for 34 years with no criminal history, said they were praying together when they were shoved from behind into the police line. Mark Middleton was sentenced to 30 months in prison, while Jalise Middleton received a 20-month prison term.

“This is my best friend and hero for 38 years!” Jalise Middleton wrote on X a week before Judge Moss’ decision was announced. “He’s carried me when I am unable to walk, he’s protected me when the police assaulted me on January 6, he’s held my hand and comforted me through all my tears & trauma, loves Jesus, our family yet off to prison he goes.”

The DOJ reported nearly 1,000 people have pleaded guilty to Jan. 6 charges, 68% for misdemeanors and 32% for felonies. Of those pleading guilty to felonies, 53% were for assaulting law enforcement officers and 40% for obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder.

Of the 1,068 defendants who have had their cases fully adjudicated, 60% were sentenced to prison and nearly 14% were sentenced to home detention, the report said.

The DOJ said only five defendants had their sentences reduced due to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Fischer v. United States, which vastly limits use of 18 U.S. Code 1512(c)(2) — a 20-year felony for obstruction of an official proceeding — in Jan. 6 prosecutions.

Prosecutors argued for using upward variances in federal sentencing guidelines to limit the impact of the Fischer decision. Judges have largely gone along with that strategy.

U.S. Park Police equestrian officers patrol near the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images

In the most recent case, U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich reduced prison time for Guy Wesley Reffitt to 80 months from the original 87-month sentence. Reffitt’s 1512(c)(2) conviction was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ordered a new sentencing based on the Supreme Court ruling.

Reffitt was the first Jan. 6 defendant to go to trial in March 2022. A D.C. jury found him guilty on all five charges, including transporting a firearm in furtherance of a civil disorder, obstruction of justice — hindering communication through force or threat of force, obstructing officers during a civil disorder, and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

All of the 215 Jan. 6 defendants who have faced a jury trial were found guilty on at least some of the charges against them. Jury trials resulted in no overall acquittals. Another 40 defendants were found guilty in bench trials based on an agreed-upon set of facts.

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