A Judge Gave Oath Keepers Seditionists A Slap on the Wrist. Here's Why the DOJ Could Successfully Change That.

Judge Amit P. Mehta

     Judge Amit Mehta is a relatively uninspiring judge, an immigrant from India who spent the brunt of his career practicing corporate law and who was appointed to the D.C. District Court by President Barack Obama in 2014, enjoying bipartisan support for his confirmation. He seemed to recognize the historic nature of his presiding over the Oath Keepers case and openly called Stewart Rhodes a threat to democracy after Rhodes gave a speech at his sentencing continuing his narrative that he is some modern American version of Nelson Mandela. All seemed to be going well at sentencing as Judge Mehta announced that the guidelines in Stewart Rhodes' case would be 21 to 27 years in prison, exactly in line with the 25 years the Justice Department had asked for. Then, Mehta sentenced Stewart Rhodes to 18 years in prison, well below the sentencing guidelines. 

     Stewart Rhodes, Judge Mehta said, was a threat to American democracy, an organizer and a terrorist who had enhancements added to the guidelines for both of these characteristics. Now, I believe in sticking to the guidelines. Going above the guidelines in this case would not achieve much: it would give Rhodes a better basis for appeal, and this overweight man in his late 50s likely wouldn't survive 21 to 27 years in federal prison. Still, Judge Mehta didn't just go on the lower end of the sentencing guidelines; he went below them. Sentencing guidelines are advisory in nature, but they are not random guesses. They are based on the severity of the offense and the likelihood that a defendant will commit future crimes. Stewart Rhodes is an anti-government extremist who showed zero remorse and was convicted of sedition, a crime analogous with treason.

     Sadly, this wasn't the first time Judge Mehta went well below the sentencing guidelines for a January 6th defendant. The DOJ asked for 210 months (17.5 years) in prison for Thomas Webster, the Capitol insurrection "eye gouger" who was the first to be convicted at trial of assaulting law enforcement that day and who falsely blamed the officers he attacked on the stand. One might understand why Judge Mehta showed some mercy on Webster in sentencing him to 10 years in prison. Webster was a decorated veteran and former NYPD officer with no criminal convictions who had disavowed his belief in 2020 election conspiracies. More perplexing and more outrageous was his sentencing of Peter Schwartz, a Pennsylvania man convicted of nine felonies for using a blunt object and pepper spray to assault law enforcement on January 6th. Mr. Schwartz has dozens of criminal convictions and arrests dating back his entire adult life, and his sentencing guidelines were also 21 to 27 years in prison. The DOJ asked for 24 years, but Judge Mehta gave Schwartz, who repeatedly called in to call himself a political prisoner at protests outside the D.C. jail and raised more than $75,000, to just 14 years, the low end of the sentencing guidelines the probation office put forward. Not only that, but he let Schwartz keep the $75,000. In the same case, Markus Maly, a Virginia man convicted of similar crimes and with a lengthy criminal history of his own who told jurors he had "fun" on January 6th, was sentenced to just six years in prison; prosecutors wanted more than 15 years.

Thomas Caldwell on January 6th

     The sentencing for the rest of the Oath Keepers went even more poorly. He sentenced Kelly Meggs to 12 years; the DOJ wanted 21. He sentenced Jessica Watkins to 8.5 years; the DOJ wanted 18. He sentenced Kenneth Harrelson to four years; the DOJ wanted 15 years. He sentenced Roberto Minuta to 4.5 years; the DOJ wanted 17. Ed Vallejo got three years; the government requested 17. David Moerschel got three years when the government requested 10, and Joseph Hackett got 3.5 years when the DOJ wanted 12. Those last four, men who went to trial and were convicted of sedition, got sentences lighter than most people who pleaded guilty to punching or pushing law enforcement and entering the Senate chamber. In the last four cases, Mehta's own guidelines calculations put their sentencing ranges at six to 10 years, and he said Watkins' and Meggs' ranges were about 10 to 15 and 15 to 20 years, respectively. All of the sentences he delivered in the most important January 6th case, the case of people who conspired to bring weapons into Washington, D.C., who formed a military stack formation and breached the Capitol before impeding and berating law enforcement, were well below even the guidelines that Judge Mehta had calculated.

     Today, we got some good news. The DOJ is appealing the weakness of every single one of these sentences. Even if they could force Mehta to go to the lower ends of his guidelines, years would be added on to each of these defendants' prison sentences. This comes just days after a Supreme Court decision gave prosecutors a major victory relevant to this same case: Watkins, Harrelson, and another defendant, Thomas Caldwell, were all acquitted of seditious conspiracy. However, the DOJ asked for similar sentences to those who were convicted of the charge because they were involved in the same plot as Rhodes, Meggs, and the others. Mehta declined to do so, but the highest court in the land got something right when they said involvement in a broader crime could be considered in sentencing even if a defendant was acquitted of those specific charges. Watkins, Harrelson, and Caldwell were all high-ranking members or affiliates of the Oath Keepers, and they, especially, deserve more prison time.

     Finally, I have a message to Judge Mehta: you came to the United States as a child. The American dream gave you the chance to become a prominent judge at the center of one of the most important cases in modern American history. You've spent your life doing the work of corporations and the very wealthy. The least you could have done in this moment was stand up for the fundamental democractic principles that define the American idea, and you failed to do that. For that, you should be ashamed to yourself, and I will continue to follow this case with the most sincere aspiration that the Justice Department prevails in seeking real justice against the men and women at the center of an insurrection.