A Georgia defendant charged and convicted for his participation in the January 6, 2021, violence at the U.S. Capitol has been suspended from practicing law in his state amid an appeal he’s filed challenging his conviction, which came from a judge rather than a jury, as has been the case in a slew of other January 6 cases.
The defendant, William McCall Calhoun, helped target a Capitol office for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and posted threateningly about the now former House Speaker on social media. Calhoun argued against applying the judge’s conviction on felony accusations to his legal practice, contending that a verdict from a bench trial should be considered to not meet the standards for a “verdict” warranting removal from the practice of law under Georgia rules. However, Georgia’s state Supreme Court — which handled the dispute — wasn’t convinced.
“In sum, we can discern no basis for assigning to the term “verdict” the stricter meaning that would exclude convictions entered on a judge’s finding of guilt,” a Georgia news outlet (11Alive) noted the deciding court to have stated. Prosecutors in general have seen a relatively consistent record of success in pursuing criminal charges stemming from the Capitol attack, so it might be safe to assume that Calhoun’s conviction will be upheld by the appeals court.
In other Capitol riot news, a defendant accused of physically attacking Officer Daniel Hodges during the chaos was recently sentenced to over seven years in prison. The defendant, Steven Cappuccio, among other actions, was accused of using Hodges’ baton to attack him in the same period in which the officer was pinned by a door at the Capitol and a stolen riot shield in use by the crowd. And another defendant who joined attacks on officers in the same Capitol area, Federico Klein, was recently sentenced to five years in prison. Klein has a notable distinction in his background, having been a Trump pick for the State Department.
