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January 6 defendants who received commutations from President Donald Trump are free to visit the U.S. Capitol without receiving prior permission, a federal judge ruled Monday.
District Judge Amit Mehta issued the order in response to a petition from Trump's Justice Department. Some of the January 6 defendants had included a restriction on visiting the capitol as part of their sentences, and the DOJ requested that those requirements be removed.
Mehta declined to remove the restrictions from their sentencing documents, but acknowledged that the commutation from Trump means those restrictions will not be enforced.
"The U.S. Department of Justice's motion is granted in part and denied in part," Mehta wrote. "The court will not 'dismiss' the non-custodial portion of defendants' sentences, but defendants are no longer bound by the judicially imposed conditions of supervised release."
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The reversal comes days after Mehta imposed the restriction on "Defendants Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, Roberto Minuta, Edward Vallejo, David Moerchel, and Joseph Hacket," whose sentences were commuted. Those pardoned were not subject to the order.
The order stated, "You must not knowingly enter the District of Columbia without first obtaining the permission from the Court," adding, "You must not knowingly enter the United States Capitol Building or onto surrounding grounds known as Capitol Square."
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While pardons vacate a defendant's conviction, a commutation leaves the conviction in place while lessening the sentence. Mehta had argued that the language of Trump's pardon for the defendants in question had only applied to their terms of imprisonment, and not to the details of their supervised release.
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Jonathan Turley, Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, called the order "very unusual" when it came down last week.
"The judge is relying on the fact that the sentences were commuted, but the defendants did not receive full pardons," Turley told Fox News Digital.
Trump pardoned nearly all Jan. 6 defendants earlier this week after promising to do so at his inaugural parade.
