Federal judge permanently closes Proud Boys Jan. 6 case, citing limits on judicial power

WASHINGTON, July 17. A Trump-appointed federal judge on Friday permanently dismissed the Jan. 6 Capitol attack prosecution of four Proud Boys members, ruling that the Constitution left him no authority to override the Justice Department's request. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted the government's motion to dismiss with prejudice against Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola, closing a case where convictions had already been erased by a federal appeals court.

Kelly's ruling: separation of powers governs the outcome

In a seven-page opinion, Kelly concluded that longstanding separation-of-powers principles assign charging decisions exclusively to the executive branch. He had no legal path to compel continued prosecution. The D.C. Circuit had already vacated the men's convictions before returning the case to Kelly's courtroom, and he wrote that denying the motion would not revive those convictions. "Nor would denying it mean a retrial would follow, because the Court lacks the authority to compel the Executive to pursue a prosecution, full stop," Kelly wrote.

Kelly was direct about his own disagreement with the outcome. "No one should mistake the Court's granting of the Government's motion for its agreement with those decisions," he wrote. He called the Jan. 6 events an attack on the people, on Congress and on the Constitution's mechanism for peaceful transfer of power.

What the defendants were convicted of

The four men faced serious felony counts before their convictions were vacated. Nordean, Biggs and Rehl had each been convicted of seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct Congress's certification of the 2020 presidential election, obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and destruction of government property. Pezzola's record differed: acquitted of seditious conspiracy, but convicted of assaulting police, robbery and destroying government property. Prosecutors said he stole a Capitol Police riot shield and used it to break a Capitol window, creating what they described as the first breach point through which hundreds of rioters entered the building.

How the case reached dismissal

The Justice Department first moved in April to vacate the convictions and dismiss the case, arguing the action was "in the interests of justice." That followed President Donald Trump's Jan. 20, 2025, executive order commuting sentences and issuing full pardons to former Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio and hundreds of other Jan. 6 defendants. Kelly noted Trump's intentions were not obscure. "There is little mystery about why the Government is moving to dismiss this case," he wrote. Tarrio, posting on X after Friday's ruling, called it "OUR victory" and credited Trump's pardons directly.