Published Today: New Research on January 6 Cases
3 years after the Capitol insurrection, cases closing
Since starting this Desk Set Research on Substack recently, I’ve been writing about news research and news researchers and the tools we use. Today, I can show an example of my research and data journalism for The Intercept.
Jim Risen and I have worked together to show that a myth about judicial bias in the Jan. 6th cases is, as of the 719 cases closed by December 2023, just that, a myth.
Among the findings:
”Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that the federal judicial system has been unnecessarily punitive in its treatment of January 6 defendants, complaining that they are “political prisoners” who have been unfairly persecuted for trying to prevent the congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election. One leading January 6 defendant compared himself to a Jew living in Nazi GermanyOpens in a new tab and said that his “only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country.”
The Intercept’s analysis sharply contradicts that right-wing narrative. In many cases, judges have rejected prosecutors’ requests for prison time, often reducing defendants’ sentences to home detention or probation. Defendants have been sentenced to standard prison terms in only 429 out of 719 cases, or 60 percent. Another 31 defendants were sentenced to intermittent incarceration, meaning they only had to serve time on nights or weekends. Home detention was given instead of prison in 101 cases, while defendants in 135 cases got probation.”
In an upcoming post, I’ll describe the tools and skills used to research, compile and analyze the data from three years of cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Early tip: Take a look at RECAP and Courtlistener from the Free Law Project.
And yes, news researchers get bylines, too.