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• What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

Published on May 8, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on November 20, 2023.

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods , but quantitative methods are sometimes also used. Case studies are good for describing , comparing, evaluating and understanding different aspects of a research problem .

Table of contents

When to do a case study, step 1: select a case, step 2: build a theoretical framework, step 3: collect your data, step 4: describe and analyze the case, other interesting articles.

A case study is an appropriate research design when you want to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge about a specific real-world subject. It allows you to explore the key characteristics, meanings, and implications of the case.

Case studies are often a good choice in a thesis or dissertation . They keep your project focused and manageable when you don’t have the time or resources to do large-scale research.

You might use just one complex case study where you explore a single subject in depth, or conduct multiple case studies to compare and illuminate different aspects of your research problem.

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Once you have developed your problem statement and research questions , you should be ready to choose the specific case that you want to focus on. A good case study should have the potential to:

• Provide new or unexpected insights into the subject
• Challenge or complicate existing assumptions and theories
• Propose practical courses of action to resolve a problem
• Open up new directions for future research

TipIf your research is more practical in nature and aims to simultaneously investigate an issue as you solve it, consider conducting action research instead.

Unlike quantitative or experimental research , a strong case study does not require a random or representative sample. In fact, case studies often deliberately focus on unusual, neglected, or outlying cases which may shed new light on the research problem.

Example of an outlying case studyIn the 1960s the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania was discovered to have extremely low rates of heart disease compared to the US average. It became an important case study for understanding previously neglected causes of heart disease.

However, you can also choose a more common or representative case to exemplify a particular category, experience or phenomenon.

Example of a representative case studyIn the 1920s, two sociologists used Muncie, Indiana as a case study of a typical American city that supposedly exemplified the changing culture of the US at the time.

While case studies focus more on concrete details than general theories, they should usually have some connection with theory in the field. This way the case study is not just an isolated description, but is integrated into existing knowledge about the topic. It might aim to:

• Exemplify a theory by showing how it explains the case under investigation
• Expand on a theory by uncovering new concepts and ideas that need to be incorporated
• Challenge a theory by exploring an outlier case that doesn’t fit with established assumptions

To ensure that your analysis of the case has a solid academic grounding, you should conduct a literature review of sources related to the topic and develop a theoretical framework . This means identifying key concepts and theories to guide your analysis and interpretation.

There are many different research methods you can use to collect data on your subject. Case studies tend to focus on qualitative data using methods such as interviews , observations , and analysis of primary and secondary sources (e.g., newspaper articles, photographs, official records). Sometimes a case study will also collect quantitative data.

Example of a mixed methods case studyFor a case study of a wind farm development in a rural area, you could collect quantitative data on employment rates and business revenue, collect qualitative data on local people’s perceptions and experiences, and analyze local and national media coverage of the development.

The aim is to gain as thorough an understanding as possible of the case and its context.

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In writing up the case study, you need to bring together all the relevant aspects to give as complete a picture as possible of the subject.

How you report your findings depends on the type of research you are doing. Some case studies are structured like a standard scientific paper or thesis , with separate sections or chapters for the methods , results and discussion .

Others are written in a more narrative style, aiming to explore the case from various angles and analyze its meanings and implications (for example, by using textual analysis or discourse analysis ).

In all cases, though, make sure to give contextual details about the case, connect it back to the literature and theory, and discuss how it fits into wider patterns or debates.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Degrees of freedom
• Null hypothesis
• Discourse analysis
• Control groups
• Mixed methods research
• Non-probability sampling
• Quantitative research
• Ecological validity

Research bias

• Rosenthal effect
• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Selection bias
• Negativity bias
• Status quo bias

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McCombes, S. (2023, November 20). What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods. Scribbr. Retrieved April 17, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/case-study/

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• Knowledge Base
• Methodology
• Case Study | Definition, Examples & Methods

Case Study | Definition, Examples & Methods

Published on 5 May 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 30 January 2023.

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organisation, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods , but quantitative methods are sometimes also used. Case studies are good for describing , comparing, evaluating, and understanding different aspects of a research problem .

Table of contents

When to do a case study, step 1: select a case, step 2: build a theoretical framework, step 3: collect your data, step 4: describe and analyse the case.

A case study is an appropriate research design when you want to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge about a specific real-world subject. It allows you to explore the key characteristics, meanings, and implications of the case.

Case studies are often a good choice in a thesis or dissertation . They keep your project focused and manageable when you don’t have the time or resources to do large-scale research.

You might use just one complex case study where you explore a single subject in depth, or conduct multiple case studies to compare and illuminate different aspects of your research problem.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

Once you have developed your problem statement and research questions , you should be ready to choose the specific case that you want to focus on. A good case study should have the potential to:

• Provide new or unexpected insights into the subject
• Challenge or complicate existing assumptions and theories
• Propose practical courses of action to resolve a problem
• Open up new directions for future research

Unlike quantitative or experimental research, a strong case study does not require a random or representative sample. In fact, case studies often deliberately focus on unusual, neglected, or outlying cases which may shed new light on the research problem.

If you find yourself aiming to simultaneously investigate and solve an issue, consider conducting action research . As its name suggests, action research conducts research and takes action at the same time, and is highly iterative and flexible. 

However, you can also choose a more common or representative case to exemplify a particular category, experience, or phenomenon.

While case studies focus more on concrete details than general theories, they should usually have some connection with theory in the field. This way the case study is not just an isolated description, but is integrated into existing knowledge about the topic. It might aim to:

• Exemplify a theory by showing how it explains the case under investigation
• Expand on a theory by uncovering new concepts and ideas that need to be incorporated
• Challenge a theory by exploring an outlier case that doesn’t fit with established assumptions

To ensure that your analysis of the case has a solid academic grounding, you should conduct a literature review of sources related to the topic and develop a theoretical framework . This means identifying key concepts and theories to guide your analysis and interpretation.

There are many different research methods you can use to collect data on your subject. Case studies tend to focus on qualitative data using methods such as interviews, observations, and analysis of primary and secondary sources (e.g., newspaper articles, photographs, official records). Sometimes a case study will also collect quantitative data .

The aim is to gain as thorough an understanding as possible of the case and its context.

In writing up the case study, you need to bring together all the relevant aspects to give as complete a picture as possible of the subject.

How you report your findings depends on the type of research you are doing. Some case studies are structured like a standard scientific paper or thesis, with separate sections or chapters for the methods , results , and discussion .

Others are written in a more narrative style, aiming to explore the case from various angles and analyse its meanings and implications (for example, by using textual analysis or discourse analysis ).

In all cases, though, make sure to give contextual details about the case, connect it back to the literature and theory, and discuss how it fits into wider patterns or debates.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, January 30). Case Study | Definition, Examples & Methods. Scribbr. Retrieved 15 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/research-methods/case-studies/

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Definition of 'case study'

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• American English : case study / ˈkeɪs ˌstʌdi /
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• Pros and Cons

What Types of Case Studies Are Out There?

Where do you find data for a case study, how do i write a psychology case study.

A case study is an in-depth study of one person, group, or event. In a case study, nearly every aspect of the subject's life and history is analyzed to seek patterns and causes of behavior. Case studies can be used in many different fields, including psychology, medicine, education, anthropology, political science, and social work.

The point of a case study is to learn as much as possible about an individual or group so that the information can be generalized to many others. Unfortunately, case studies tend to be highly subjective, and it is sometimes difficult to generalize results to a larger population.

While case studies focus on a single individual or group, they follow a format similar to other types of psychology writing. If you are writing a case study, we got you—here are some rules of APA format to reference.  

At a Glance

A case study, or an in-depth study of a person, group, or event, can be a useful research tool when used wisely. In many cases, case studies are best used in situations where it would be difficult or impossible for you to conduct an experiment. They are helpful for looking at unique situations and allow researchers to gather a lot of˜ information about a specific individual or group of people. However, it's important to be cautious of any bias we draw from them as they are highly subjective.

What Are the Benefits and Limitations of Case Studies?

A case study can have its strengths and weaknesses. Researchers must consider these pros and cons before deciding if this type of study is appropriate for their needs.

One of the greatest advantages of a case study is that it allows researchers to investigate things that are often difficult or impossible to replicate in a lab. Some other benefits of a case study:

• Allows researchers to capture information on the 'how,' 'what,' and 'why,' of something that's implemented
• Gives researchers the chance to collect information on why one strategy might be chosen over another
• Permits researchers to develop hypotheses that can be explored in experimental research

On the other hand, a case study can have some drawbacks:

• It cannot necessarily be generalized to the larger population
• Cannot demonstrate cause and effect
• It may not be scientifically rigorous
• It can lead to bias

Researchers may choose to perform a case study if they want to explore a unique or recently discovered phenomenon. Through their insights, researchers develop additional ideas and study questions that might be explored in future studies.

It's important to remember that the insights from case studies cannot be used to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables. However, case studies may be used to develop hypotheses that can then be addressed in experimental research.

Case Study Examples

There have been a number of notable case studies in the history of psychology. Much of  Freud's work and theories were developed through individual case studies. Some great examples of case studies in psychology include:

• Anna O : Anna O. was a pseudonym of a woman named Bertha Pappenheim, a patient of a physician named Josef Breuer. While she was never a patient of Freud's, Freud and Breuer discussed her case extensively. The woman was experiencing symptoms of a condition that was then known as hysteria and found that talking about her problems helped relieve her symptoms. Her case played an important part in the development of talk therapy as an approach to mental health treatment.
• Phineas Gage : Phineas Gage was a railroad employee who experienced a terrible accident in which an explosion sent a metal rod through his skull, damaging important portions of his brain. Gage recovered from his accident but was left with serious changes in both personality and behavior.
• Genie : Genie was a young girl subjected to horrific abuse and isolation. The case study of Genie allowed researchers to study whether language learning was possible, even after missing critical periods for language development. Her case also served as an example of how scientific research may interfere with treatment and lead to further abuse of vulnerable individuals.

Such cases demonstrate how case research can be used to study things that researchers could not replicate in experimental settings. In Genie's case, her horrific abuse denied her the opportunity to learn a language at critical points in her development.

This is clearly not something researchers could ethically replicate, but conducting a case study on Genie allowed researchers to study phenomena that are otherwise impossible to reproduce.

There are a few different types of case studies that psychologists and other researchers might use:

• Collective case studies : These involve studying a group of individuals. Researchers might study a group of people in a certain setting or look at an entire community. For example, psychologists might explore how access to resources in a community has affected the collective mental well-being of those who live there.
• Descriptive case studies : These involve starting with a descriptive theory. The subjects are then observed, and the information gathered is compared to the pre-existing theory.
• Explanatory case studies : These   are often used to do causal investigations. In other words, researchers are interested in looking at factors that may have caused certain things to occur.
• Exploratory case studies : These are sometimes used as a prelude to further, more in-depth research. This allows researchers to gather more information before developing their research questions and hypotheses .
• Instrumental case studies : These occur when the individual or group allows researchers to understand more than what is initially obvious to observers.
• Intrinsic case studies : This type of case study is when the researcher has a personal interest in the case. Jean Piaget's observations of his own children are good examples of how an intrinsic case study can contribute to the development of a psychological theory.

The three main case study types often used are intrinsic, instrumental, and collective. Intrinsic case studies are useful for learning about unique cases. Instrumental case studies help look at an individual to learn more about a broader issue. A collective case study can be useful for looking at several cases simultaneously.

The type of case study that psychology researchers use depends on the unique characteristics of the situation and the case itself.

There are a number of different sources and methods that researchers can use to gather information about an individual or group. Six major sources that have been identified by researchers are:

• Archival records : Census records, survey records, and name lists are examples of archival records.
• Direct observation : This strategy involves observing the subject, often in a natural setting . While an individual observer is sometimes used, it is more common to utilize a group of observers.
• Documents : Letters, newspaper articles, administrative records, etc., are the types of documents often used as sources.
• Interviews : Interviews are one of the most important methods for gathering information in case studies. An interview can involve structured survey questions or more open-ended questions.
• Participant observation : When the researcher serves as a participant in events and observes the actions and outcomes, it is called participant observation.
• Physical artifacts : Tools, objects, instruments, and other artifacts are often observed during a direct observation of the subject.

If you have been directed to write a case study for a psychology course, be sure to check with your instructor for any specific guidelines you need to follow. If you are writing your case study for a professional publication, check with the publisher for their specific guidelines for submitting a case study.

Here is a general outline of what should be included in a case study.

Section 1: A Case History

This section will have the following structure and content:

Background information : The first section of your paper will present your client's background. Include factors such as age, gender, work, health status, family mental health history, family and social relationships, drug and alcohol history, life difficulties, goals, and coping skills and weaknesses.

Description of the presenting problem : In the next section of your case study, you will describe the problem or symptoms that the client presented with.

Describe any physical, emotional, or sensory symptoms reported by the client. Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions related to the symptoms should also be noted. Any screening or diagnostic assessments that are used should also be described in detail and all scores reported.

Your diagnosis : Provide your diagnosis and give the appropriate Diagnostic and Statistical Manual code. Explain how you reached your diagnosis, how the client's symptoms fit the diagnostic criteria for the disorder(s), or any possible difficulties in reaching a diagnosis.

Section 2: Treatment Plan

This portion of the paper will address the chosen treatment for the condition. This might also include the theoretical basis for the chosen treatment or any other evidence that might exist to support why this approach was chosen.

• Cognitive behavioral approach : Explain how a cognitive behavioral therapist would approach treatment. Offer background information on cognitive behavioral therapy and describe the treatment sessions, client response, and outcome of this type of treatment. Make note of any difficulties or successes encountered by your client during treatment.
• Humanistic approach : Describe a humanistic approach that could be used to treat your client, such as client-centered therapy . Provide information on the type of treatment you chose, the client's reaction to the treatment, and the end result of this approach. Explain why the treatment was successful or unsuccessful.
• Psychoanalytic approach : Describe how a psychoanalytic therapist would view the client's problem. Provide some background on the psychoanalytic approach and cite relevant references. Explain how psychoanalytic therapy would be used to treat the client, how the client would respond to therapy, and the effectiveness of this treatment approach.
• Pharmacological approach : If treatment primarily involves the use of medications, explain which medications were used and why. Provide background on the effectiveness of these medications and how monotherapy may compare with an approach that combines medications with therapy or other treatments.

This section of a case study should also include information about the treatment goals, process, and outcomes.

When you are writing a case study, you should also include a section where you discuss the case study itself, including the strengths and limitiations of the study. You should note how the findings of your case study might support previous research. 

In your discussion section, you should also describe some of the implications of your case study. What ideas or findings might require further exploration? How might researchers go about exploring some of these questions in additional studies?

Need More Tips?

Here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind when formatting your case study:

• Never refer to the subject of your case study as "the client." Instead, use their name or a pseudonym.
• Read examples of case studies to gain an idea about the style and format.
• Remember to use APA format when citing references .

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach .  BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011;11:100.

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach . BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011 Jun 27;11:100. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-11-100

Gagnon, Yves-Chantal.  The Case Study as Research Method: A Practical Handbook . Canada, Chicago Review Press Incorporated DBA Independent Pub Group, 2010.

Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods . United States, SAGE Publications, 2017.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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A case study research paper examines a person, place, event, condition, phenomenon, or other type of subject of analysis in order to extrapolate  key themes and results that help predict future trends, illuminate previously hidden issues that can be applied to practice, and/or provide a means for understanding an important research problem with greater clarity. A case study research paper usually examines a single subject of analysis, but case study papers can also be designed as a comparative investigation that shows relationships between two or more subjects. The methods used to study a case can rest within a quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method investigative paradigm.

Case Studies. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010 ; “What is a Case Study?” In Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London: SAGE, 2010.

How to Approach Writing a Case Study Research Paper

General information about how to choose a topic to investigate can be found under the " Choosing a Research Problem " tab in the Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper writing guide. Review this page because it may help you identify a subject of analysis that can be investigated using a case study design.

However, identifying a case to investigate involves more than choosing the research problem . A case study encompasses a problem contextualized around the application of in-depth analysis, interpretation, and discussion, often resulting in specific recommendations for action or for improving existing conditions. As Seawright and Gerring note, practical considerations such as time and access to information can influence case selection, but these issues should not be the sole factors used in describing the methodological justification for identifying a particular case to study. Given this, selecting a case includes considering the following:

• The case represents an unusual or atypical example of a research problem that requires more in-depth analysis? Cases often represent a topic that rests on the fringes of prior investigations because the case may provide new ways of understanding the research problem. For example, if the research problem is to identify strategies to improve policies that support girl's access to secondary education in predominantly Muslim nations, you could consider using Azerbaijan as a case study rather than selecting a more obvious nation in the Middle East. Doing so may reveal important new insights into recommending how governments in other predominantly Muslim nations can formulate policies that support improved access to education for girls.
• The case provides important insight or illuminate a previously hidden problem? In-depth analysis of a case can be based on the hypothesis that the case study will reveal trends or issues that have not been exposed in prior research or will reveal new and important implications for practice. For example, anecdotal evidence may suggest drug use among homeless veterans is related to their patterns of travel throughout the day. Assuming prior studies have not looked at individual travel choices as a way to study access to illicit drug use, a case study that observes a homeless veteran could reveal how issues of personal mobility choices facilitate regular access to illicit drugs. Note that it is important to conduct a thorough literature review to ensure that your assumption about the need to reveal new insights or previously hidden problems is valid and evidence-based.
• The case challenges and offers a counter-point to prevailing assumptions? Over time, research on any given topic can fall into a trap of developing assumptions based on outdated studies that are still applied to new or changing conditions or the idea that something should simply be accepted as "common sense," even though the issue has not been thoroughly tested in current practice. A case study analysis may offer an opportunity to gather evidence that challenges prevailing assumptions about a research problem and provide a new set of recommendations applied to practice that have not been tested previously. For example, perhaps there has been a long practice among scholars to apply a particular theory in explaining the relationship between two subjects of analysis. Your case could challenge this assumption by applying an innovative theoretical framework [perhaps borrowed from another discipline] to explore whether this approach offers new ways of understanding the research problem. Taking a contrarian stance is one of the most important ways that new knowledge and understanding develops from existing literature.
• The case provides an opportunity to pursue action leading to the resolution of a problem? Another way to think about choosing a case to study is to consider how the results from investigating a particular case may result in findings that reveal ways in which to resolve an existing or emerging problem. For example, studying the case of an unforeseen incident, such as a fatal accident at a railroad crossing, can reveal hidden issues that could be applied to preventative measures that contribute to reducing the chance of accidents in the future. In this example, a case study investigating the accident could lead to a better understanding of where to strategically locate additional signals at other railroad crossings so as to better warn drivers of an approaching train, particularly when visibility is hindered by heavy rain, fog, or at night.
• The case offers a new direction in future research? A case study can be used as a tool for an exploratory investigation that highlights the need for further research about the problem. A case can be used when there are few studies that help predict an outcome or that establish a clear understanding about how best to proceed in addressing a problem. For example, after conducting a thorough literature review [very important!], you discover that little research exists showing the ways in which women contribute to promoting water conservation in rural communities of east central Africa. A case study of how women contribute to saving water in a rural village of Uganda can lay the foundation for understanding the need for more thorough research that documents how women in their roles as cooks and family caregivers think about water as a valuable resource within their community. This example of a case study could also point to the need for scholars to build new theoretical frameworks around the topic [e.g., applying feminist theories of work and family to the issue of water conservation].

Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. “Building Theories from Case Study Research.” Academy of Management Review 14 (October 1989): 532-550; Emmel, Nick. Sampling and Choosing Cases in Qualitative Research: A Realist Approach . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2013; Gerring, John. “What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good for?” American Political Science Review 98 (May 2004): 341-354; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Seawright, Jason and John Gerring. "Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research." Political Research Quarterly 61 (June 2008): 294-308.

Structure and Writing Style

The purpose of a paper in the social sciences designed around a case study is to thoroughly investigate a subject of analysis in order to reveal a new understanding about the research problem and, in so doing, contributing new knowledge to what is already known from previous studies. In applied social sciences disciplines [e.g., education, social work, public administration, etc.], case studies may also be used to reveal best practices, highlight key programs, or investigate interesting aspects of professional work.

In general, the structure of a case study research paper is not all that different from a standard college-level research paper. However, there are subtle differences you should be aware of. Here are the key elements to organizing and writing a case study research paper.

I.  Introduction

As with any research paper, your introduction should serve as a roadmap for your readers to ascertain the scope and purpose of your study . The introduction to a case study research paper, however, should not only describe the research problem and its significance, but you should also succinctly describe why the case is being used and how it relates to addressing the problem. The two elements should be linked. With this in mind, a good introduction answers these four questions:

• What is being studied? Describe the research problem and describe the subject of analysis [the case] you have chosen to address the problem. Explain how they are linked and what elements of the case will help to expand knowledge and understanding about the problem.
• Why is this topic important to investigate? Describe the significance of the research problem and state why a case study design and the subject of analysis that the paper is designed around is appropriate in addressing the problem.
• What did we know about this topic before I did this study? Provide background that helps lead the reader into the more in-depth literature review to follow. If applicable, summarize prior case study research applied to the research problem and why it fails to adequately address the problem. Describe why your case will be useful. If no prior case studies have been used to address the research problem, explain why you have selected this subject of analysis.
• How will this study advance new knowledge or new ways of understanding? Explain why your case study will be suitable in helping to expand knowledge and understanding about the research problem.

Each of these questions should be addressed in no more than a few paragraphs. Exceptions to this can be when you are addressing a complex research problem or subject of analysis that requires more in-depth background information.

II.  Literature Review

The literature review for a case study research paper is generally structured the same as it is for any college-level research paper. The difference, however, is that the literature review is focused on providing background information and  enabling historical interpretation of the subject of analysis in relation to the research problem the case is intended to address . This includes synthesizing studies that help to:

• Place relevant works in the context of their contribution to understanding the case study being investigated . This would involve summarizing studies that have used a similar subject of analysis to investigate the research problem. If there is literature using the same or a very similar case to study, you need to explain why duplicating past research is important [e.g., conditions have changed; prior studies were conducted long ago, etc.].
• Describe the relationship each work has to the others under consideration that informs the reader why this case is applicable . Your literature review should include a description of any works that support using the case to investigate the research problem and the underlying research questions.
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research using the case study . If applicable, review any research that has examined the research problem using a different research design. Explain how your use of a case study design may reveal new knowledge or a new perspective or that can redirect research in an important new direction.
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies . This refers to synthesizing any literature that points to unresolved issues of concern about the research problem and describing how the subject of analysis that forms the case study can help resolve these existing contradictions.
• Point the way in fulfilling a need for additional research . Your review should examine any literature that lays a foundation for understanding why your case study design and the subject of analysis around which you have designed your study may reveal a new way of approaching the research problem or offer a perspective that points to the need for additional research.
• Expose any gaps that exist in the literature that the case study could help to fill . Summarize any literature that not only shows how your subject of analysis contributes to understanding the research problem, but how your case contributes to a new way of understanding the problem that prior research has failed to do.
• Locate your own research within the context of existing literature [very important!] . Collectively, your literature review should always place your case study within the larger domain of prior research about the problem. The overarching purpose of reviewing pertinent literature in a case study paper is to demonstrate that you have thoroughly identified and synthesized prior studies in relation to explaining the relevance of the case in addressing the research problem.

III.  Method

In this section, you explain why you selected a particular case [i.e., subject of analysis] and the strategy you used to identify and ultimately decide that your case was appropriate in addressing the research problem. The way you describe the methods used varies depending on the type of subject of analysis that constitutes your case study.

If your subject of analysis is an incident or event . In the social and behavioral sciences, the event or incident that represents the case to be studied is usually bounded by time and place, with a clear beginning and end and with an identifiable location or position relative to its surroundings. The subject of analysis can be a rare or critical event or it can focus on a typical or regular event. The purpose of studying a rare event is to illuminate new ways of thinking about the broader research problem or to test a hypothesis. Critical incident case studies must describe the method by which you identified the event and explain the process by which you determined the validity of this case to inform broader perspectives about the research problem or to reveal new findings. However, the event does not have to be a rare or uniquely significant to support new thinking about the research problem or to challenge an existing hypothesis. For example, Walo, Bull, and Breen conducted a case study to identify and evaluate the direct and indirect economic benefits and costs of a local sports event in the City of Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of their study was to provide new insights from measuring the impact of a typical local sports event that prior studies could not measure well because they focused on large "mega-events." Whether the event is rare or not, the methods section should include an explanation of the following characteristics of the event: a) when did it take place; b) what were the underlying circumstances leading to the event; and, c) what were the consequences of the event in relation to the research problem.

If your subject of analysis is a person. Explain why you selected this particular individual to be studied and describe what experiences they have had that provide an opportunity to advance new understandings about the research problem. Mention any background about this person which might help the reader understand the significance of their experiences that make them worthy of study. This includes describing the relationships this person has had with other people, institutions, and/or events that support using them as the subject for a case study research paper. It is particularly important to differentiate the person as the subject of analysis from others and to succinctly explain how the person relates to examining the research problem [e.g., why is one politician in a particular local election used to show an increase in voter turnout from any other candidate running in the election]. Note that these issues apply to a specific group of people used as a case study unit of analysis [e.g., a classroom of students].

If your subject of analysis is a place. In general, a case study that investigates a place suggests a subject of analysis that is unique or special in some way and that this uniqueness can be used to build new understanding or knowledge about the research problem. A case study of a place must not only describe its various attributes relevant to the research problem [e.g., physical, social, historical, cultural, economic, political], but you must state the method by which you determined that this place will illuminate new understandings about the research problem. It is also important to articulate why a particular place as the case for study is being used if similar places also exist [i.e., if you are studying patterns of homeless encampments of veterans in open spaces, explain why you are studying Echo Park in Los Angeles rather than Griffith Park?]. If applicable, describe what type of human activity involving this place makes it a good choice to study [e.g., prior research suggests Echo Park has more homeless veterans].

If your subject of analysis is a phenomenon. A phenomenon refers to a fact, occurrence, or circumstance that can be studied or observed but with the cause or explanation to be in question. In this sense, a phenomenon that forms your subject of analysis can encompass anything that can be observed or presumed to exist but is not fully understood. In the social and behavioral sciences, the case usually focuses on human interaction within a complex physical, social, economic, cultural, or political system. For example, the phenomenon could be the observation that many vehicles used by ISIS fighters are small trucks with English language advertisements on them. The research problem could be that ISIS fighters are difficult to combat because they are highly mobile. The research questions could be how and by what means are these vehicles used by ISIS being supplied to the militants and how might supply lines to these vehicles be cut off? How might knowing the suppliers of these trucks reveal larger networks of collaborators and financial support? A case study of a phenomenon most often encompasses an in-depth analysis of a cause and effect that is grounded in an interactive relationship between people and their environment in some way.

NOTE:   The choice of the case or set of cases to study cannot appear random. Evidence that supports the method by which you identified and chose your subject of analysis should clearly support investigation of the research problem and linked to key findings from your literature review. Be sure to cite any studies that helped you determine that the case you chose was appropriate for examining the problem.

IV.  Discussion

The main elements of your discussion section are generally the same as any research paper, but centered around interpreting and drawing conclusions about the key findings from your analysis of the case study. Note that a general social sciences research paper may contain a separate section to report findings. However, in a paper designed around a case study, it is common to combine a description of the results with the discussion about their implications. The objectives of your discussion section should include the following:

Reiterate the Research Problem/State the Major Findings Briefly reiterate the research problem you are investigating and explain why the subject of analysis around which you designed the case study were used. You should then describe the findings revealed from your study of the case using direct, declarative, and succinct proclamation of the study results. Highlight any findings that were unexpected or especially profound.

Explain the Meaning of the Findings and Why They are Important Systematically explain the meaning of your case study findings and why you believe they are important. Begin this part of the section by repeating what you consider to be your most important or surprising finding first, then systematically review each finding. Be sure to thoroughly extrapolate what your analysis of the case can tell the reader about situations or conditions beyond the actual case that was studied while, at the same time, being careful not to misconstrue or conflate a finding that undermines the external validity of your conclusions.

Relate the Findings to Similar Studies No study in the social sciences is so novel or possesses such a restricted focus that it has absolutely no relation to previously published research. The discussion section should relate your case study results to those found in other studies, particularly if questions raised from prior studies served as the motivation for choosing your subject of analysis. This is important because comparing and contrasting the findings of other studies helps support the overall importance of your results and it highlights how and in what ways your case study design and the subject of analysis differs from prior research about the topic.

Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings Remember that the purpose of social science research is to discover and not to prove. When writing the discussion section, you should carefully consider all possible explanations revealed by the case study results, rather than just those that fit your hypothesis or prior assumptions and biases. Be alert to what the in-depth analysis of the case may reveal about the research problem, including offering a contrarian perspective to what scholars have stated in prior research if that is how the findings can be interpreted from your case.

Acknowledge the Study's Limitations You can state the study's limitations in the conclusion section of your paper but describing the limitations of your subject of analysis in the discussion section provides an opportunity to identify the limitations and explain why they are not significant. This part of the discussion section should also note any unanswered questions or issues your case study could not address. More detailed information about how to document any limitations to your research can be found here .

Suggest Areas for Further Research Although your case study may offer important insights about the research problem, there are likely additional questions related to the problem that remain unanswered or findings that unexpectedly revealed themselves as a result of your in-depth analysis of the case. Be sure that the recommendations for further research are linked to the research problem and that you explain why your recommendations are valid in other contexts and based on the original assumptions of your study.

V.  Conclusion

As with any research paper, you should summarize your conclusion in clear, simple language; emphasize how the findings from your case study differs from or supports prior research and why. Do not simply reiterate the discussion section. Provide a synthesis of key findings presented in the paper to show how these converge to address the research problem. If you haven't already done so in the discussion section, be sure to document the limitations of your case study and any need for further research.

The function of your paper's conclusion is to: 1) reiterate the main argument supported by the findings from your case study; 2) state clearly the context, background, and necessity of pursuing the research problem using a case study design in relation to an issue, controversy, or a gap found from reviewing the literature; and, 3) provide a place to persuasively and succinctly restate the significance of your research problem, given that the reader has now been presented with in-depth information about the topic.

Consider the following points to help ensure your conclusion is appropriate:

• If the argument or purpose of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize these points for your reader.
• If prior to your conclusion, you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the conclusion of your paper to describe your main points and explain their significance.
• Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration of the case study's findings that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction or within a new context that emerges from your case study findings.

Note that, depending on the discipline you are writing in or the preferences of your professor, the concluding paragraph may contain your final reflections on the evidence presented as it applies to practice or on the essay's central research problem. However, the nature of being introspective about the subject of analysis you have investigated will depend on whether you are explicitly asked to express your observations in this way.

Problems to Avoid

Overgeneralization One of the goals of a case study is to lay a foundation for understanding broader trends and issues applied to similar circumstances. However, be careful when drawing conclusions from your case study. They must be evidence-based and grounded in the results of the study; otherwise, it is merely speculation. Looking at a prior example, it would be incorrect to state that a factor in improving girls access to education in Azerbaijan and the policy implications this may have for improving access in other Muslim nations is due to girls access to social media if there is no documentary evidence from your case study to indicate this. There may be anecdotal evidence that retention rates were better for girls who were engaged with social media, but this observation would only point to the need for further research and would not be a definitive finding if this was not a part of your original research agenda.

Failure to Document Limitations No case is going to reveal all that needs to be understood about a research problem. Therefore, just as you have to clearly state the limitations of a general research study , you must describe the specific limitations inherent in the subject of analysis. For example, the case of studying how women conceptualize the need for water conservation in a village in Uganda could have limited application in other cultural contexts or in areas where fresh water from rivers or lakes is plentiful and, therefore, conservation is understood more in terms of managing access rather than preserving access to a scarce resource.

Failure to Extrapolate All Possible Implications Just as you don't want to over-generalize from your case study findings, you also have to be thorough in the consideration of all possible outcomes or recommendations derived from your findings. If you do not, your reader may question the validity of your analysis, particularly if you failed to document an obvious outcome from your case study research. For example, in the case of studying the accident at the railroad crossing to evaluate where and what types of warning signals should be located, you failed to take into consideration speed limit signage as well as warning signals. When designing your case study, be sure you have thoroughly addressed all aspects of the problem and do not leave gaps in your analysis that leave the reader questioning the results.

Case Studies. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Gerring, John. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Merriam, Sharan B. Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education . Rev. ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1998; Miller, Lisa L. “The Use of Case Studies in Law and Social Science Research.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 14 (2018): TBD; Mills, Albert J., Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Putney, LeAnn Grogan. "Case Study." In Encyclopedia of Research Design , Neil J. Salkind, editor. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010), pp. 116-120; Simons, Helen. Case Study Research in Practice . London: SAGE Publications, 2009;  Kratochwill,  Thomas R. and Joel R. Levin, editors. Single-Case Research Design and Analysis: New Development for Psychology and Education .  Hilldsale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992; Swanborn, Peter G. Case Study Research: What, Why and How? London : SAGE, 2010; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 6th edition. Los Angeles, CA, SAGE Publications, 2014; Walo, Maree, Adrian Bull, and Helen Breen. “Achieving Economic Benefits at Local Events: A Case Study of a Local Sports Event.” Festival Management and Event Tourism 4 (1996): 95-106.

Writing Tip

At Least Five Misconceptions about Case Study Research

Social science case studies are often perceived as limited in their ability to create new knowledge because they are not randomly selected and findings cannot be generalized to larger populations. Flyvbjerg examines five misunderstandings about case study research and systematically "corrects" each one. To quote, these are:

Misunderstanding 1 :  General, theoretical [context-independent] knowledge is more valuable than concrete, practical [context-dependent] knowledge. Misunderstanding 2 :  One cannot generalize on the basis of an individual case; therefore, the case study cannot contribute to scientific development. Misunderstanding 3 :  The case study is most useful for generating hypotheses; that is, in the first stage of a total research process, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building. Misunderstanding 4 :  The case study contains a bias toward verification, that is, a tendency to confirm the researcher’s preconceived notions. Misunderstanding 5 :  It is often difficult to summarize and develop general propositions and theories on the basis of specific case studies [p. 221].

While writing your paper, think introspectively about how you addressed these misconceptions because to do so can help you strengthen the validity and reliability of your research by clarifying issues of case selection, the testing and challenging of existing assumptions, the interpretation of key findings, and the summation of case outcomes. Think of a case study research paper as a complete, in-depth narrative about the specific properties and key characteristics of your subject of analysis applied to the research problem.

Flyvbjerg, Bent. “Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12 (April 2006): 219-245.

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A research method that engages in the close, detailed examination of a single example or phenomenon. In some instances, it may be a version of ideographic rather than nomothetic investigation—seeking ...

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A key Supreme Court bribery case could come down to the definition of this word

It looks like it’s about to become harder for the federal government to prosecute public officials on charges of corruption. But don’t blame the Supreme Court just yet.  

The high court has steadily loosened restrictions meant to protect the public against politicians and other public officials behaving badly. And it’s fair to criticize the court for that. It shouldn’t be this hard to prosecute politicians who are accused of abusing the public trust. 

But now in the case of Snyder v. United States , the court is faced with a federal bribery law, which may not do what it is supposed to do — protect the public from politicians and other public officials who seek to serve themselves, not us. 

Let’s remember that the Supreme Court has made it harder, not easier, to prosecute politicians who are accused of abusing the public trust.

James Snyder , a former small-town mayor in Indiana, may be an example of just such a politician. He awarded city contracts to a trucking company. He then ran into financial problems and went to that trucking company asking for money. The trucking company obliged and paid him $13,000 for consulting work that never came to fruition .  

But the federal law may provide an escape hatch for Snyder. The federal law bars state and local officials from “corruptly” soliciting, demanding, accepting or agreeing to accept anything valued more than $5,000 while “intending to be influenced or rewarded” for an official act. We know that the statute punishes quid pro quo agreements to take an official act in the future. But does it go further? It largely depends on how broadly or narrowly “corruptly” is defined. 

It is no surprise then that the correct definition of the word “corruptly” took up much of oral arguments. The government argued that corruption includes knowing that what you’re doing is “unlawful” or “wrongful” or possessing a “consciousness of wrongdoing.” Snyder argued that corruption means something different, “deliberately and wrongfully agreeing to a quid pro quo.”

The government’s approach would punish more conduct and represents a better approach. It correctly balances competing goals. On the one hand, we want prosecutors to be able to go after officials who undertake public acts because money has or will arrive in their pockets. On the other hand, we don’t want the federal government to criminalize the acceptance of thank you gifts. There is a difference between seats to a basketball game and a no-bid contract. 

The high court stands on the precipice of allowing officials like Snyder to come, hat in hand, to ask for money for those who have benefited from his official acts. This seems wrong, but the wording of the statute may just not reach the Snyders of the world. These are tough questions involving the best legal interpretation of statutes meant to uphold the public’s trust in our officials.  

These difficulties are compounded by the fact that it has always been difficult to link the receipt of money or gifts to official acts and while the statute must be clarified, it shouldn’t be so narrow that it essentially fails in its purpose to protect the public. More often than not, politicians can claim that they would have taken an action that benefited a donor regardless of the donation. Few politicians are sloppy enough to leave a smoking gun behind and say something like “I’m only voting for this bill because you gave me money.”  

These difficulties are compounded by the fact that it has always been difficult to link the receipt of money or gifts to official acts.

And let’s remember that the Supreme Court has made it harder, not easier, to prosecute politicians who are accused of abusing the public trust. In 2016, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the bribery conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. In doing so, the court made it more difficult for the federal government to prove bribery in all cases by narrowing the definition of what constitutes an “official act” under the federal bribery statute. Critics of the court’s decision claim that the case does little more than legalize pay-to-play politics. 

Similarly, the court’s campaign finance cases, in decisions like Citizens United , have significantly narrowed the definition of corruption to just “quid pro quo” corruption. Arguably, the campaign finance laws therefore accomplish little more than the federal bribery laws do. And the federal bribery laws are likely about to get narrower. 

We want to punish the person who awards a city contract knowing that they might or intending to get something in return. We don’t want to punish the person who is thanked for an official act and never had any expectation, or perhaps even desire, for a thank you. Again, the difference hinges on the definition of the word “corruptly,” and Congress can clarify that. But given Congress’ relative inaction, the court may be left to issue an opinion which narrows the definition of corruption.  

Snyder undertook an official act and then asked for and received money from the group that benefited from that act. Is that the same as getting money and then taking an official act? If Snyder undertook his official act knowing he was, or intending to be, influenced by the money he received, the harm to the public is the same whether the money was given before or after the act and the statute should reflect that.

For years, the Supreme Court has made it harder to prosecute corrupt officials, weakening the force and effect of anti-corruption statutes. But here, the weakness may be in the statute itself. Congress should fix this or the court should adopt a broad definition of the word “corruptly.” Anything less signals that public office is a place for those who seek to line their own pockets.  

Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, is the host of the " Passing Judgment " podcast. She is also the director of the Public Service Institute at Loyola Law School, director of Loyola's Journalist Law School and former president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission. 

World-first “Cybercrime Index” ranks countries by cybercrime threat level

Following three years of intensive research, an international team of researchers have compiled the first ever ‘World Cybercrime Index’, which identifies the globe’s key cybercrime hotspots by ranking the most significant sources of cybercrime at a national level.

The Index, published today in the journal PLOS ONE , shows that a relatively small number of countries house the greatest cybercriminal threat. Russia tops the list, followed by Ukraine, China, the USA, Nigeria, and Romania. The UK comes in at number eight.

‘The research that underpins the Index will help remove the veil of anonymity around cybercriminal offenders, and we hope that it will aid the fight against the growing threat of profit-driven cybercrime,’ Dr Bruce said.

‘We now have a deeper understanding of the geography of cybercrime, and how different countries specialise in different types of cybercrime.’

‘By continuing to collect this data, we’ll be able to monitor the emergence of any new hotspots and it is possible early interventions could be made in at-risk countries before a serious cybercrime problem even develops.’

The data that underpins the Index was gathered through a survey of 92 leading cybercrime experts from around the world who are involved in cybercrime intelligence gathering and investigations. The survey asked the experts to consider five major categories of cybercrime*, nominate the countries that they consider to be the most significant sources of each of these types of cybercrime, and then rank each country according to the impact, professionalism, and technical skill of its cybercriminals.

Co-author Associate Professor Jonathan Lusthaus , from the University of Oxford’s Department of Sociology and Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, said cybercrime has largely been an invisible phenomenon because offenders often mask their physical locations by hiding behind fake profiles and technical protections.

'Due to the illicit and anonymous nature of their activities, cybercriminals cannot be easily accessed or reliably surveyed. They are actively hiding. If you try to use technical data to map their location, you will also fail, as cybercriminals bounce their attacks around internet infrastructure across the world. The best means we have to draw a picture of where these offenders are actually located is to survey those whose job it is to track these people,' Dr Lusthaus said.

Figuring out why some countries are cybercrime hotspots, and others aren't, is the next stage of the research. There are existing theories about why some countries have become hubs of cybercriminal activity - for example, that a technically skilled workforce with few employment opportunities may turn to illicit activity to make ends meet - which we'll be able to test against our global data set. Dr Miranda Bruce  Department of Sociology, University of Oxford and UNSW Canberra   

Co-author of the study, Professor Federico Varese from Sciences Po in France, said the World Cybercrime Index is the first step in a broader aim to understand the local dimensions of cybercrime production across the world.

‘We are hoping to expand the study so that we can determine whether national characteristics like educational attainment, internet penetration, GDP, or levels of corruption are associated with cybercrime. Many people think that cybercrime is global and fluid, but this study supports the view that, much like forms of organised crime, it is embedded within particular contexts,’ Professor Varese said.

The World Cybercrime Index has been developed as a joint partnership between the University of Oxford and UNSW and has also been funded by CRIMGOV , a European Union-supported project based at the University of Oxford and Sciences Po. The other co-authors of the study include Professor Ridhi Kashyap from the University of Oxford and Professor Nigel Phair from Monash University.

The study ‘Mapping the global geography of cybercrime with the World Cybercrime Index’ has been published in the journal PLOS ONE .

*The five major categories of cybercrime assessed by the study were:

1.   Technical products/services (e.g. malware coding, botnet access, access to compromised systems, tool production).

2.   Attacks and extortion (e.g. denial-of-service attacks, ransomware).

3.   Data/identity theft (e.g. hacking, phishing, account compromises, credit card comprises).

4.   Scams (e.g. advance fee fraud, business email compromise, online auction fraud).

5.   Cashing out/money laundering (e.g. credit card fraud, money mules, illicit virtual currency platforms).

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'If It Doesn't Fit, You Must Acquit': Everything About the Infamous Glove in O.J. Simpson's Trial

The gloves that did not fit Simpson's hands during his 1994 murder trial has remained a fixture of the case for decades

Chris Barilla is a Digital News Editor at PEOPLE. He has been working at PEOPLE since 2023. His work has previously appeared on Distractify, The Blast, and Entertainment Daily.

Lee Celano/WireImage

One of the most infamous aspects of O.J. Simpson 's murder trial for the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman came in an unlikely form: a pair of gloves.

In the years since Simpson was acquitted of the murders, the black leather gloves, which were alleged to have been worn by the killer during the murders and ultimately did not fit Simpson's hands during the trial, proved to be crucial to his acquittal and has remained a permanent fixture in the history of the case.

In the wake of Simpson's death at 76 on April 10 from cancer , the gloves remain at the forefront of the minds of those still looking to make sense of the crime.

AP Photo/David Sprague

The gloves were a key piece of evidence in Simpson's trial

Each of the gloves was found in a separate location, per CNN . The left-handed glove was recovered outside of Brown's home, while the right-handed glove was found at Simpson's estate.

When LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman found the blood-stained right-hand glove at Simpson's home, per the Washington Post , it was sufficient evidence to issue an arrest warrant.

Beyond just blood, per the Los Angeles Times , hair and clothing fibers that were consistent with Simpson, Brown and Goldman, along with fibers from a 1993–1994 Ford Bronco and Brown's Akita dog, were all found on the glove recovered from Simpson's home.

However, when Simpson tried the gloves on in court, he struggled to get them onto his hands. This led to the defense claiming that if the former NFL star could not fit in the gloves, he couldn't have committed the murder.

VINCE BUCCI/AFP via Getty

The famous "If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit" quote was created by Simpson's defense attorney Johnnie Cochran

One of the issues that prosecutors had surrounding the glove not fitting Simpson's hand was their knowledge that he had arthritis and was on anti-inflammatory medications, per another report from the Los Angeles Times . They were concerned that Simpson had intentionally foregone taking the medication to make his hands swell up and be unable to fit in the gloves.

However, that was disproven when the Los Angeles County Jail doctor confirmed to attorneys that Simpson had taken his medication every day, on record. The dismissal of this claim led Simpson's defense attorney Johnnie Cochran to quip, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," which became the most famous statement to emerge from the trial.

There are theories that the glove did not fit due to dried blood

Another concern that prosecutors raised, per CNN, was that once drenched in blood and having sat outside freezing and thawing, the gloves had shrunk, which resulted in them not fitting Simpson's hand.

Prosecutor Chris Darden called upon glove expert Richard Rubin during the trial, who testified, "If you drench the glove and let it dry naturally, you’ll lose 15% of the size," per the New York Daily News . When Darden suggested blood caused the shrinkage, Rubin retorted that he could not confirm what liquid had been on the gloves that resulted in them becoming smaller.

Cochran responded to the prosecutor's claims by stating that their theory about blood causing the gloves to shrink was a response to their inability to prove the gloves fit Simpson's hand under regular circumstances.

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Supreme Court grapples with limits on obstruction charge in Jan. 6 cases

About 350 defendants, one-fourth of the total, have been charged with obstruction in the capitol attack on jan. 6, 2021, so the high court's decision could have a big impact..

• The lawyer for Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer argued prosecutors turned a 'catchall' law into a 'dragnet' by charging obstruction too broadly.
• Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said prosecutors must prove defendants intended to obstruct a specific meeting such as Congress counting Electoral College votes, which limits it.

The Supreme Court grappled Tuesday with the breadth of obstruction charge s filed against one-fourth of the defendants from the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021 , including former President Donald Trump .

Prosecutors have applied a 2002 law adopted in the wake of a financial scandal so broadly that even peaceful protesters could face 20 years in prison if the government's interpretation is allowed to stand, Jeffrey Green, a lawyer for Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer , told the court.

Green urged the justices to interpret the law narrowly, applying it only to the destruction of documents , and to avoid turning “a catchall provision into a dragnet.”

If the high court sides with the Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer, hundreds of people convicted or facing trial for entering the Capitol on Jan. 6 could see their top felony charge dismissed − a victory for those defendants and for supporters, including Trump, who say they were unfairly targeted.

But Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar , representing the Justice Department, told the justices that the obstruction law's limits are clear, noting that three-quarters of the Jan. 6 defendants haven’t been charged with it. She argued the law applied to obstructing an official meeting, such as Congress counting Electoral College votes, with corrupt intent − such as threating violence.

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Several justices said they were searching for boundaries for what crimes the law should cover.

“We need to find out what are the outer reaches of this statute, under your interpretation,” Justice Samuel Alito said to Prelogar.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked about how broadly the law was being interpreted. “Should I be concerned?” Barrett asked Prelogar.

Does pulling a fire arm or heckling at the State of the Union qualify for obstruction charge? Gorsuch asks

Justice Neil Gorsuch and Alito asked whether non-violent protests could be charged. Gorsuch asked whether pulling a fire alarm before a congressional vote , disrupting a trial or heckling the president’s State of the Union speech would qualify for charges with a 20-year maximum sentence.

Alito asked whether a protest in the courtroom would warrant charges if five people standing up to speak about Jan. 6 were removed forcibly, delaying arguments for 5 minutes.

"Has the government applied this provision to other protests in the past, and has this been the government's position throughout the lifespan of this statute?" Justice Clarence Thomas asked.

Prelogar said there have not been previous charges involving protests under the law, but it had been used in cases other than for shredding paperwork, such as in tipping off suspects about a grand jury or about an undercover cop.

In response to Alito and Gorsuch, she said it would be difficult to charge brief protests under the obstruction law because the disruption was brief and because the protesters would have First Amendment claims. She contrasted that to the violence on Jan. 6.

“I think it’s in a fundamentally different posture than if they had stormed into the courtroom, overrun the Supreme Court police, required the justices and other participants to flee for their safety and done so with clear evidence of intent to obstruct,” Prelogar said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor sounded friendlier to the government’s position. She said if a theater posts a sign threatened to kick out anyone who photographed or recorded the actors, an audience member could still be kicked for yelling that obstructs the performance.

“It’s not the manner in which you obstruct, it’s the fact that you’ve obstructed,” Sotomayor said.

Justices focus on meaning of word 'otherwise'

The disputed language in the law prohibits anyone from “corruptly” destroying or concealing a government record, or who “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.”

The “otherwise” is a key part of the legal dispute. Green argued the “otherwise” means the law is targeted at document destruction. If the law applied to disrupting official meetings, it would be too harsh and broad, Green argued.

“The government wants to unleash a 20-year maximum penalty on potential peaceful protests,” Green said. “People are going to worry about the kinds of protests they engage in even if they’re peaceful because the government has this weapon.”

But Prelogar argued the “otherwise” was “a classic catchall” that lawmakers adopted to cover creative forms of obstruction.

“After Enron, what Congress thought is, ‘We don’t want novel ways that we are thinking about to obstruct a proceeding to not be a crime. We do want to cover the waterfront of obstructive conduct with the backstop’” of a criminally corrupt frame of mind, Prelogar said.

Justice Alito said the government’s interpretation “might be the more straightforward” and urged Green to explain why his version is better.

“I think that you may be biting off more than you can chew by suggesting – if you are indeed suggesting – that the otherwise clause can only be read the way you read it,” Alito said.

Justice Elena Kagan said Congress adopted the law in 2002 after the Enron scandal, which included shredding documents, to fill gaps in what charges could be filed.

“They said, ‘Let’s have a backstop provision,’” Kagan said. “This is their backstop provision.”

Sentencing under law much shorter than 20-year maximum: lawyer

Fischer, a former police officer in central Pennsylvania, faces the obstruction charge plus a handful of misdemeanor counts for entering the Capitol Rotunda and being driven out by police with pepper spray.

Two of four charges against Trump in his federal election interference case are based on the same law, so the Supreme Court's decision could affect him and hundreds of others. But special counsel Jack Smith has argued that, even if Fischer is successful, Trump could still be charged because of other actions he took to recruit alternate presidential electors before the congressional count on Jan. 6.

Despite Green’s concern about the law’s 20-year maximum sentence, Prelogar said prison terms from Jan. 6 have been far shorter. Congress adopted the law in 2002 after the Enron scandal, when the failed energy firm's accountants were found to have destroyed documents and no charges were available to use against them.

About 350 out of 1,350 Jan. 6 defendants were charged under the obstruction law. Prosecutors charged defendants by arguing they knew Congress was meeting and tried to disrupt it, threated violence or showed a willingness to use violence, or brought tactical or military gear, she said.

“We’ve never had a situation like this before where there’s been a situation like this attempting to stop a proceeding violently,” Sotomayor said.

The average sentence for a Jan. 6 defendant without a criminal history who committed violence was 10 to 16 months, Prelogar said. The average for a non-violent defendant was six to 12 months.

Among about 50 defendants whose only felony conviction was the obstruction charge, the sentences averaged 26 months, Prelogar said.

“There is no reasonable argument to be made that the statutory maximum is driving anything with respect to sentencing,” Prelogar said.

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Opinion | A key Supreme Court bribery case could come down to the definition of this word

It looks like it’s about to become harder for the federal government to prosecute public officials on charges of corruption. But don’t blame the Supreme Court just yet.

The high court has steadily loosened restrictions meant to protect the public against politicians and other public officials behaving badly. And it’s fair to criticize the court for that. It shouldn’t be this hard to prosecute politicians who are accused of abusing the public trust.

But now in the case of Snyder v. United States , the court is faced with a federal bribery law, which may not do what it is supposed to do — protect the public from politicians and other public officials who seek to serve themselves, not us.

James Snyder , a former small-town mayor in Indiana, may be an example of just such a politician. He awarded city contracts to a trucking company. He then ran into financial problems and went to that trucking company asking for money. The trucking company obliged and paid him $13,000 for consulting work that never came to fruition .

But the federal law may provide an escape hatch for Snyder. The federal law bars state and local officials from “corruptly” soliciting, demanding, accepting or agreeing to accept anything valued more than $5,000 while “intending to be influenced or rewarded” for an official act. We know that the statute punishes quid pro quo agreements to take an official act in the future. But does it go further? It largely depends on how broadly or narrowly “corruptly” is defined.

It is no surprise then that the correct definition of the word “corruptly” took up much of oral arguments. The government argued that corruption includes knowing that what you’re doing is “unlawful” or “wrongful” or possessing a “consciousness of wrongdoing.” Snyder argued that corruption means something different, “deliberately and wrongfully agreeing to a quid pro quo.”

The government’s approach would punish more conduct and represents a better approach. It correctly balances competing goals. On the one hand, we want prosecutors to be able to go after officials who undertake public acts because money has or will arrive in their pockets. On the other hand, we don’t want the federal government to criminalize the acceptance of thank you gifts. There is a difference between seats to a basketball game and a no-bid contract.

The high court stands on the precipice of allowing officials like Snyder to come, hat in hand, to ask for money for those who have benefited from his official acts. This seems wrong, but the wording of the statute may just not reach the Snyders of the world. These are tough questions involving the best legal interpretation of statutes meant to uphold the public’s trust in our officials.

These difficulties are compounded by the fact that it has always been difficult to link the receipt of money or gifts to official acts and while the statute must be clarified, it shouldn’t be so narrow that it essentially fails in its purpose to protect the public. More often than not, politicians can claim that they would have taken an action that benefited a donor regardless of the donation. Few politicians are sloppy enough to leave a smoking gun behind and say something like “I’m only voting for this bill because you gave me money.”

And let’s remember that the Supreme Court has made it harder, not easier, to prosecute politicians who are accused of abusing the public trust. In 2016, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the bribery conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. In doing so, the court made it more difficult for the federal government to prove bribery in all cases by narrowing the definition of what constitutes an “official act” under the federal bribery statute. Critics of the court’s decision claim that the case does little more than legalize pay-to-play politics.

Similarly, the court’s campaign finance cases, in decisions like Citizens United , have significantly narrowed the definition of corruption to just “quid pro quo” corruption. Arguably, the campaign finance laws therefore accomplish little more than the federal bribery laws do. And the federal bribery laws are likely about to get narrower.

We want to punish the person who awards a city contract knowing that they might or intending to get something in return. We don’t want to punish the person who is thanked for an official act and never had any expectation, or perhaps even desire, for a thank you. Again, the difference hinges on the definition of the word “corruptly,” and Congress can clarify that. But given Congress’ relative inaction, the court may be left to issue an opinion which narrows the definition of corruption.

Snyder undertook an official act and then asked for and received money from the group that benefited from that act. Is that the same as getting money and then taking an official act? If Snyder undertook his official act knowing he was, or intending to be, influenced by the money he received, the harm to the public is the same whether the money was given before or after the act and the statute should reflect that.

For years, the Supreme Court has made it harder to prosecute corrupt officials, weakening the force and effect of anti-corruption statutes. But here, the weakness may be in the statute itself. Congress should fix this or the court should adopt a broad definition of the word “corruptly.” Anything less signals that public office is a place for those who seek to line their own pockets.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com

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Justices Examine Use of a Law to Charge Jan. 6 Rioters

The questioning explored the gravity of the assault and whether prosecutors had stretched the law to reach members of the mob responsible for the attack.

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Abbie VanSickle

The implications for the court’s decision in today’s Jan. 6 case could eliminate some of the federal charges that former President Donald J. Trump is facing for his role in the plot to subvert the 2020 election. It could also jeopardize hundreds of Jan. 6 prosecutions.

Adam Liptak

Reporting from Washington

Trump allies are using this case to try to reframe the Jan. 6 attack.

Lawmakers allied with former President Trump are using a case before the Supreme Court as part of their effort to reframe the events of Jan. 6, 2021, as a political protest, not a violent assault on the Capitol in which violence disrupted Congress and lawmakers fled.

The case before the Supreme Court, focused on the text of a statute used to charge some participants, also has the potential to determine the very meaning of Jan. 6. Briefs from Mr. Trump’s supporters echo the former president’s embrace of the rioters during his campaign events.

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and other Republican lawmakers said in one brief that “the Department of Justice and D.C. juries have readily attributed immorality to the genuine belief of many Jan. 6 defendants that there was fraud during the 2020 presidential election.”

Protests are part of the fabric of politics, they wrote, adding that the prosecutors’ interpretation of the statute would have applied to a peaceful rally led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Advocacy groups throughout history have organized trips to Washington timed to congressional or executive consideration of favored items,” the lawmakers wrote in the brief before going on to quote from a magazine article. “Most famously, the 1963 civil rights ‘March on Washington’ ‘was designed to force President Kennedy to support the Civil Rights Act’ then pending in Congress.”

The brief also discussed other protests, including the disruption of the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and praised the Trump administration’s restraint.

“Those actions by protesters were highly improper and certainly were criminal,” the brief said of the Kavanaugh protest. “But President Trump’s Department of Justice did not adopt the strained view that those protesters should be charged” under the statute at issue in the new case.

The Biden administration, in its main brief , devoted a paragraph to the critique, drawing several distinctions. The law, the brief said, “covers acts that hinder a proceeding — not acts, like lobbying or peaceful protest, that are not readily characterized as rising to the level of obstruction or that independently enjoy protection under the First Amendment.”

The brief added that the law applied only to conduct directed at a specific proceeding and required proof that the defendant had acted corruptly.

Critics of Mr. Trump — including J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former appeals court judge, and John Danforth, a Republican former senator from Missouri — countered that the comparisons pressed by Mr. Cotton and Mr. Jordan were profoundly misplaced.

“There is simply no historical comparison between the consequences of criminal acts in opposition to the election of a new president — as illustrated by both our Civil War and the Jan. 6, 2021, invasion — and the ‘what about’ examples discussed in the Cotton-Jordan brief,” they wrote in a brief. “Indeed, no one was physically hurt” as part of “any of those examples.”

“And none of those examples,” they added, “threatened something remotely as fundamental to our constitutional system as the peaceful transfer of executive power.”

Richard D. Bernstein, a lawyer for Mr. Luttig and other former officials who signed the supporting brief, said that allowing cases under the obstruction law to proceed was crucial.

“These obstruction prosecutions deter possible future invasions of Congress aimed at preventing the peaceful transfer of power,” he said.

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Another issue to watch is whether the court bites on the notion that there must some proof of evidence or document tampering to trigger the statute. If the justices accept that argument, it could mean that the law doesn’t really apply to boots-on-the-ground Jan. 6 rioters. But even if the court narrows the law in that way, it could still apply to Donald Trump’s Jan. 6-related criminal case.

Overall, the court seemed most accepting of arguments that pointed out the potential harms in interpreting the obstruction law at issue too broadly. The conservatives in particular seemed concerned that if the statute applied to Jan. 6 then it could be weaponized against a range of other political protests.

Arguments have concluded in the Jan. 6 case before the Supreme Court. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrapped up her presentation to the justices, and Jeffrey Green, the lawyer for the Jan. 6 defendant, presented his rebuttal. The arguments were largely technical, focused on the interpretation of a statute that has mainly been construed to focus on the destruction of business records. The court’s decision in the case is expected to come by the end of the term in late June.

The court’s decision in today’s Jan. 6 case could eliminate some of the federal charges that former President Donald J. Trump is facing for his role in the plot to subvert the 2020 election. It could also jeopardize hundreds of Jan. 6 prosecutions.

Jeff Green seized on the concern by the conservative justices that an expansive view of the obstruction law could be a “weapon” against other political protest. “People are going to worry about the kinds of activity they engage in, even if it’s peaceful,” he says.

Justice Barrett asks Prelogar if the obstruction law would be triggered if someone merely stood outside the Capitol and urged the crowd on. Prelogar says if there was evidence that the person was, say, a ringleader of the crowd who made plans to help others to enter the building and stop the counting of electoral vote then, yes, they could be charged with obstruction. That pattern of facts tracks fairly closely to the case of Stewart Rhodes , the former leader of the Oath Keepers militia, who remained outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 but was charged with the obstruction count, among other crimes.

Prelogar says that even though the central figure in this case, Joseph Fischer, was charged with other crimes, including assaulting police officers, the obstruction count he faces was still valid. She says that the evidence in Fischer’s case shows he went to Capitol specifically to disrupt the election certification proceeding and so the obstruction count fits.

Charlie Savage

Chief Justice Roberts asks Prelogar what constitutes formal acceptance of an Office of Legal Counsel memo as an official Justice Department position — rather than just being advice offered to the attorney general —and Prelogar says with a half laugh “I should probably know the answer to that one as a matter of D.O.J. policy.” Roberts says he should, too.

As someone who frequently sues the government seeking disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act, I can attest that the Justice Department often takes the position that Office of Legal Counsel opinions usually do not rise to the level of being a formally adopted policy. That means, in the government’s view, they are exempt from disclosure even though they are considered binding legal interpretations for the rest of the government.

Justice Barrett asks whether a defendant has to commit physical violence to fall under this statute. Prelogar says no. The fact that several Jan. 6 defendants who committed no violence but were still charged with this obstruction law has long been a complaint from rightwing critics of the Justice Department investigation of the Capitol attack.

If you’re just joining us now, the justices are hearing from Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who is arguing that a statute written to prohibit the destruction of business records should apply to Jan. 6 rioters. Several of the conservative justices, including Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch, have raised hypotheticals that appear to be pulled from recent headlines to ask whether other demonstrations, including a pro-Palestinian protest that blocks the Golden Gate Bridge, might trigger charges under the law.

Prelogar answers the question in part by noting that only 350 of the 1,350 or so people indicted in connection with Jan. 6 were charged with the obstruction count. Her point is that there are ways to use the statute narrowly. There has to be actual evidence that people not only committed obstruction but did so “corruptly,” as the law requires.

The implication of her argument is that the government has shown it has used the charge judiciously in Jan. 6 cases, so the interpretation she advocates won’t lead to a wholesale criminalization of political protest.

This line of argument about what kinds of political protest fall under this statute gets right to the heart of what, if anything, made Jan. 6 an unique moment in history. Some of the conservative justices are trying to tease out why Jan. 6 is covered by the statute and not, say, a pro-Palestinian protest on the Golden Gate Bridge or a protest at the court itself.

Prelogar is trying to fend off the notion that any political protest that disrupted an official proceeding could be criminalized by this law and punished by a maximum of 20 years in prison. She says that “a peaceful protest,” even one that was “quite disruptive” might not qualify for prosecution under this statute.

What does it mean to act ‘corruptly’?

The law that is the subject of Tuesday’s argument requires prosecutors to prove the defendant acted “corruptly.” But the meaning of that word is disputed.

Indeed, even the judges in the majority in a 2-to-1 appeals court ruling against Joseph W. Fischer, who is accused of violating the law by joining the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could not agree on just what the word meant.

In the lead opinion, Judge Florence Y. Pan wrote that Mr. Fischer’s conduct satisfied any plausible definition and that she would not choose among them. “I leave the exact contours of ‘corrupt’ intent for another day,” Judge Pan wrote.

But Judge Justin R. Walker said he was willing to concur in her opinion only on the condition that prosecutors be required to prove that Mr. Fischer had acted corruptly in the sense of having “an intent to procure an unlawful benefit either for himself or for some other person.”

Moreover, Judge Walker wrote, prosecutors must prove that “the defendant not only knew he was obtaining an ‘unlawful benefit’ but that his ‘objective’ or ‘purpose’ was to obtain that unlawful benefit.”

The definition was crucial, Judge Walker wrote, limiting what would otherwise be the law’s “breathtaking scope.”

“If I did not read ‘corruptly’ narrowly,” he wrote, “I would join the dissenting opinion.”

In dissent, Judge Gregory G. Katsas wrote that he would define “corruptly” even more narrowly, requiring an intent to procure “an unlawful financial, professional or exculpatory advantage.”

“In contrast, this case involves the much more diffuse, intangible benefit of having a preferred candidate remain president,” Judge Katsas wrote. “If that is good enough, then anyone acting to achieve a specific purpose would satisfy this requirement, for the purpose of the action would qualify as the benefit.”

Judge Walker said he was doubtful of that reading, but he added that Mr. Fischer’s conduct might qualify under even that strict standard.

“This case may involve a professional benefit,” he wrote. “The defendants’ conduct may have been an attempt to help Donald Trump unlawfully secure a professional advantage — the presidency.”

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar presented the government’s argument that the statute should apply to the Jan. 6 defendants as “a straightforward question of statutory interpretation.” She says that, in plain English, the crime that day involved people attempting to obstruct the work of Congress.

Justice Clarence Thomas asks Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar if the government has applied this statute to other “violent protests” in the past.

Prelogar says no, but for the simple reason that an attack like the one that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6 had never happened before.

If you're just joining us, the justices have been hearing argument from Jeffrey T. Green, a lawyer who represents Jan. 6 defendant, Joseph W. Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer. The argument thus far has been, as expected, technical and focused on interpretation of a decades-old statute focused on the destruction of business records.

Green just tried to argue that the left-wing attacks on the federal courthouse in Portland were analogous to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. That argument was shut down by multiple federal judges in Washington who have been hearing Jan. 6 cases.

The argument here about whether interpreting the statute in a particular way would mean some of language is superfluous underscores a larger problem with the federal obstruction of justice statutes. Criminal law professors and practitioners agree that the statutes are a confusingly drafted, overlapping mess.

A key precedent ruled that a fish is not a tangible object.

In 2015, the Supreme Court limited the sweep of the statute at issue in Tuesday’s argument, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

The case involved fish. More precisely, undersized red grouper.

One of the sponsors of the law, Michael Oxley, filed a brief in that case explaining its history and purpose, saying it sought to close gaps that made it hard to prosecute accountants in the wake of the collapse of Enron, a giant energy company.

The law meant to address “specific loopholes” that Arthur Andersen, Enron’s accountants, “had exploited when they shredded business documents and destroyed hard drives in anticipation of federal law-enforcement action,” wrote Mr. Oxley, a former Ohio representative, who died in 2016 .

The law, Mr. Oxley wrote, was tightly focused on such conduct and should not be read too broadly. Though he did not address the provision at issue in the new case, it is a good bet that he would have been skeptical of prosecutors’ reliance on it in a case about an attack on the Capitol. (Paul S. Sarbanes, a former senator from Maryland and the law’s other principal sponsor, died in 2020 .)

The question for the justices in the old case, Yates v. United States , was broadly similar to the one the justices are considering on Tuesday: How far can a law meant to address white-collar business fraud be stretched to encompass other sorts of wrongful conduct?

The case arose from a 2007 search of the Miss Katie, a fishing vessel whose captain was John L. Yates. A field officer boarded the ship at sea and noticed fish that seemed less than 20 inches long, which was under the minimum legal size of red grouper at the time.

The officer measured the fish and placed the 72 he deemed too small in a crate. He issued a citation and instructed Mr. Yates to take the crate to port for seizure. But Mr. Yates had the fish thrown overboard and replaced with larger ones. A second inspection in port aroused suspicions, and a crew member eventually told law enforcement officials what had happened.

Mr. Yates was convicted of violating a part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that made it a crime to conceal or destroy “any record, document or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct or influence” a federal investigation. He was sentenced to 30 days’ imprisonment.

On appeal, Mr. Yates argued that the term “tangible object,” read in context, did not apply to fish. Mr. Oxley’s supporting brief agreed, saying Congress had meant to address the shredding of records and similar conduct.

“Against this unanimous evidence of congressional intent, the government’s reading of” the provision “to reach destruction of any and all things, including piscine creatures, falls flat,” Mr. Oxley wrote.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that the law did not reach fish.

“A fish is no doubt an object that is tangible,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for four of the justices in the majority. But she added that it would cut the law “loose from its financial-fraud mooring to hold that it encompasses any and all objects, whatever their size or significance, destroyed with obstructive intent.”

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the plain words of the law mattered more than its purpose. “A fish is, of course, a discrete thing that possesses physical form,” Justice Kagan wrote, citing as authority the Dr. Seuss classic “One Fish, Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.”

Defense lawyers have long argued that there was no document tampering aspect at all in the storming of the Capitol and one federal judge in Washington agreed with them, which is essentially why we’re here in the Supreme Court today. But it is possible to argue, as the special counsel Jack Smith has done in Trump’s case, that there was document tampering on Jan. 6. That’s because the certification proceeding involved so-called fake slates of electors wrongly claiming that Trump won the election in several states won by President Biden.

The dense semantics being argued here are circling an important question: whether this statute — designed to curb things like destroying documents — requires specific proof that records were actually tampered with. And further: whether document tampering has anything to do with pro-Trump rioters breaking into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

A key question in the case: the meaning of ‘otherwise’

The provision at issue in the case, from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, has two parts. The question for the justices is how they interact. And that depends on the word that links them: “otherwise.”

The first part of the provision focuses on evidence, saying that anyone who corruptly “alters, destroys, mutilates or conceals a record, document or other object” to affect an official proceeding is guilty of a felony.

So far, so good. It is uncontroversial to reinforce that destroying documents to impede an investigation has been a core purpose of the law, which was prompted by the shredding of documents in an accounting scandal.

The second part of the provision makes it a crime “otherwise” to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding. Prosecutors say the defendant in the case, Joseph W. Fischer, did that by joining the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The heart of the case is how the first part of the provision pivots to the second part.

The ordinary meaning of “otherwise,” prosecutors say, is “in a different manner.” That means, they say, that the obstruction of official proceedings need not involve the destruction of evidence. The second part, they say, is a broad catchall for any kind of corrupt interference with an official proceeding.

Lawyers for Mr. Fischer, the defendant in Tuesday’s case, counter that the first part must inform and limit the second one — meaning that the obstruction of official proceedings must be linked to the destruction of evidence. They would read “otherwise” as “similarly.”

The alternative, they say, would be to create a crime of breathtaking scope that would allow prosecutors to charge political protesters and others with felonies carrying 20-year prison sentences.

In 2008, in Begay v. United States , the court considered a law with a broadly similar structure, the Armed Career Criminal Act , which requires mandatory sentences for people convicted of possessing firearms if they have earlier been found guilty of three violent felonies. In one clause, it listed specific crimes that qualified as violent felonies — including burglary, arson and extortion.

Then, as in the new case, there followed an “otherwise” clause, this one adding any crime that “otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.”

The Supreme Court ruled that the examples informed and limited the sweep of the “otherwise” clause. If Congress had “meant the statute to be all-encompassing, it is hard to see why it would have needed to include the examples at all,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for the majority.

A drunken driving offense, the court ruled, did not qualify as one of the covered crimes even though the plain words of the clause would seem to encompass it.

Mr. Fisher’s lawyers say that the “otherwise” clause in the obstruction statute must also be anchored in the preceding clause.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed, with Judge Florence Y. Pan writing that the two uses of “otherwise” were different. The gun law, she wrote, “includes a list of examples followed by ‘otherwise’ in a single, unbroken sentence.”

By contrast, she wrote, the “otherwise” in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act “sits within a separately numbered subparagraph, after a semicolon and line break, all of which put distance between it and the lists of verbs and objects” in the previous part.

In dissent, Judge Gregory G. Katsas wrote that “the relationship created by the word otherwise does not depend on punctuation or line breaks.”

Rather, he wrote, “it flows from the connotation of similarity,” among other factors. That meant, he concluded, that the second part of the provision applies “only to acts that affect the integrity or availability of evidence.”

What does the law at issue in the case actually say?

At its core, the case is about the meaning of a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It was enacted following the collapse of Enron, a giant energy company, after the exposure of widespread accounting fraud and the destruction of documents by the company’s outside auditor.

There is an uneasy fit between the immediate purpose of the law and its recent use in more than 300 prosecutions arising from the violent riot that forced a halt to the constitutionally required congressional count of presidential electors’ ballots.

At least part of what it meant to accomplish was to address a gap in the federal criminal code at the time: It was a crime to persuade others to destroy records relevant to an investigation or official proceeding but not to do so oneself.

The law meant to close that gap. It did, in a two-part provision, Section 1512(c) of the federal criminal code:

(c) Whoever corruptly — (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object , or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding , or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

The first part focuses on evidence, making it a felony to tamper with it to affect an official proceeding. The second part makes it a crime “otherwise” to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding.

The heart of this case is the pivot from the first part to the second part. The ordinary meaning of “otherwise,” prosecutors say, is “in a different manner.” That means, they say, that the obstruction of official proceedings need not involve the destruction of evidence — in their view, making the second part a broad catchall for any kind of corrupt interference with an official proceeding.

The lawyers for Joseph W. Fischer, who was accused of breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and of assaulting police officers, counter that the first part must inform and limit the second one — meaning that the obstruction of official proceedings must be linked to the destruction of evidence. They would read “otherwise” as “similarly.”

The alternative, they say, would be to create a felony of breathtaking scope that would allow prosecutors to charge political protesters with felonies carrying 20-year prison sentences.

The court’s decision could have a direct impact on Donald Trump.

While the Supreme Court’s hearing is intended to determine the scope and validity of an obstruction law used against hundreds of rioters who broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, any decision could also have an impact on a separate criminal case: one in which former President Donald J. Trump has been accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

Two of the four criminal counts Mr. Trump is facing in that case are based on the obstruction law. In an indictment filed in Washington last summer, he was charged with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the election on Jan. 6 during a joint session of Congress at the Capitol as well as with actually obstructing it.

If the justices determine that prosecutors improperly used the obstruction law against members of the pro-Trump mob who disrupted the session, Mr. Trump’s lawyers will surely seek to have the charges against him dismissed as well. In fact, they already tried that in October. They argued unsuccessfully to the trial judge in the case that Mr. Trump’s indictment unfairly used the statute, which was initially “directed at the destruction of records in accounting fraud,” by applying it “to disputing the outcome of a presidential election.”

“This stretches the statutory language beyond any plausible mooring to its text,” the lawyers wrote.

Jack Smith, the special counsel handling Mr. Trump’s case, has told the Supreme Court that the two obstruction counts against the former president would be still valid even if the justices narrowed the law to cover only crimes that involved tampering with documents or records.

Mr. Trump triggered that provision of the law, Mr. Smith has said, by plotting to create fake slates of electors that claimed he won in several keys swing states that he actually lost to President Biden. Mr. Smith has accused Mr. Trump of trying to use those fake slates to throw the certification proceeding into chaos and by urging his vice president, Mike Pence, to capitalize on the confusion by single-handedly declaring him the winner of the race.

Even if the obstruction count were ultimately removed from Trump’s indictment, it would probably not be a fatal blow.

The indictment contains two other conspiracy counts that overlap almost entirely with the accusations in the obstruction counts. One of the conspiracy charges accuses Mr. Trump of committing fraud by using deceit to subvert the normal course of the election. The other charges him with plotting to deprive millions of Americans of the right to have votes properly counted.

Prosecutions tied to the Capitol attack have ensnared more than 1,380 people.

The investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack is already the largest criminal inquiry in Justice Department history, federal prosecutors have said. And even after more than three years, it has shown little sign of slowing down.

Every week, a few more rioters are arrested and charges against them are unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington. Prosecutors have suggested that a total of 2,000 or 2,500 people could ultimately face indictment for their roles in the attack.

More than 1,380 people had been charged in connection with the attack as of early this month, according to the Justice Department. Among the most common charges brought against them are two misdemeanors: illegal parading inside the Capitol and entering and remaining in a restricted federal area, a type of trespassing.

About 350 rioters have been accused of violating the obstruction statute that the Supreme Court is considering at its hearing, and nearly 500 people have been charged with assaulting police officers. Many rioters have been charged with multiple crimes, the most serious of which so far has been seditious conspiracy.

Almost 800 defendants have already pleaded guilty; about 250 of them have done so to felony charges. Prosecutors have won the vast majority of the cases that have gone to trial: More than 150 defendants have been convicted at trial and only two have been fully acquitted.

More than 850 people have been sentenced so far, and about 520 have received at least some time in prison. The stiffest penalties have been handed down to the former leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, far-right extremist groups that played central roles in the Capitol attack.

Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader, was sentenced to 22 years in prison , and Stewart Rhodes, who once led the Oath Keepers, was given an 18-year term .

The prosecution of a police officer, Joseph Fischer, led to this hearing.

The man whose case led to the Supreme Court hearing on a controversial federal obstruction law is a former police officer from rural Pennsylvania indicted on charges of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and crashing into a line of his fellow officers defending the building.

Joseph W. Fischer was working for the police department in North Cornwall Township, Pa., when prosecutors say he pushed his way into the Capitol while holding up his cellphone to take videos of the surge. Once inside, he and another rioter “galloped forward,” prosecutors say, making contact with a line of officers who were fighting off the crowd.

Mr. Fischer fell to the ground and, as some nearby officers helped him to his feet, he tried to engage with them, prosecutors say.

“I’m a cop too,” he said, “sometimes the country is worth more than your job.”

According to court papers, Mr. Fischer was concerned about his own job before making the trip to Washington. Investigators unearthed text messages he wrote to the chief of his department, saying that things could get “violent” on Jan. 6 and that the crowd should “storm the capital and drag all the democrates.”

He also warned the chief that he might need him to post his bail, the papers said.

Township officials suspended Mr. Fischer without pay on the day of his arrest in February 2021 and later fired him. But he has pushed back against the government’s description of behavior on Jan. 6.

His lawyers say that he and a companion were prepared to leave Washington that day after listening President Trump’s speech near the White House and turned around to head toward the Capitol only after hearing about the mounting protest there. The lawyers also claim that Mr. Fischer arrived at the Capitol grounds well after Congress had recessed the proceeding to certify the results of the 2020 election because of the attack.

“As Mr. Fischer walked toward the east side of the building, no barricades or fences impeded him,” the lawyers wrote in their brief to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Fischer has disputed the assertion by prosecutors that he charged the police line inside the Capitol, telling the court instead that he was pushed into the officers by “the weight of the crowd.”

He also characterized his interactions with the officers differently than prosecutors did, claiming that he merely talked with one of the officers and patted him on the shoulder.

An accounting scandal spurred the law used to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants.

The provision at issue in the case is part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a 2002 law enacted after the collapse of Enron, a giant energy company, after the exposure of widespread accounting fraud and the destruction of documents by its outside auditor, Arthur Andersen.

The Supreme Court has said that the purpose of the law was “to safeguard investors in public companies and restore trust in the financial markets following the collapse of Enron.”

At least part of what the law meant to accomplish was to address a gap in the federal criminal code: it was a crime to persuade others to destroy records relevant to an investigation or official proceeding but not to do so oneself. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was meant to close that gap.

Lawyers for Joseph W. Fischer, charged under the law with obstructing an official proceeding by joining the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, said his case had an Alice-in-Wonderland quality.

“The Through the Looking Glass moment here,” they wrote in a Supreme Court brief , “would be for those who wrote the Sarbanes-Oxley Act upon learning that they had created a new and breathtaking obstruction offense by endeavoring to close the narrow Enron-Arthur Anderson loophole.”

Indeed, in a different case on the scope of the statute, one of the sponsors of the law, Michael Oxley, filed a supporting brief saying prosecutors had interpreted it too broadly. The law meant to address “specific loopholes” that Arthur Andersen “had exploited when they shredded business documents and destroyed hard drives in anticipation of federal law-enforcement action,” wrote Mr. Oxley, a former Ohio representative who died in 2016 .

In that case, concerning a separate provision of the law, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the law’s origins informed its meaning and spared the defendant.

“The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, all agree, was prompted by the exposure of Enron’s massive accounting fraud and revelations that the company’s outside auditor, Arthur Andersen, had systematically destroyed potentially incriminating documents,” she wrote for four of the justices in the majority. She added that the government had acknowledged that the provision “was intended to prohibit, in particular, corporate document-shredding to hide evidence of financial wrongdoing.”

An earlier version of this article misstated the year of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. It was 2021, not 2001.

How we handle corrections

Supreme Court Appears Skeptical of Using Obstruction Law to Charge Jan. 6 Rioters

The Supreme Court seemed wary on Tuesday of letting prosecutors use a federal obstruction law to charge hundreds of rioters involved in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

A decision rejecting the government’s interpretation of the law could not only disrupt those prosecutions but also eliminate half of the charges against former President Donald J. Trump in the federal case accusing him of plotting to subvert the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump’s case did not come up at the argument, which was largely focused on trying to make sense of a statute, enacted to address white-collar crime, that all concerned agreed was not a model of clarity. But the justices’ questions also considered the gravity of the assault and whether prosecutors have been stretching the law to reach members of the mob responsible for the attack, which interrupted certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who returned to the bench after an unexplained absence on Monday, asked whether the government was engaging in a kind of selective prosecution. “There have been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings,” he said. “Has the government applied this provision to other protests?”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor took a different view of what happened on Jan. 6. “We’ve never had a situation before where there’s been a situation like this with people attempting to stop a proceeding violently,” she said.

The question for the justices was whether one of the laws used to prosecute some of the members of the mob that stormed the Capitol fits their conduct. The law, a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, contains a broad catchall provision that makes it a crime to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding.

But the provision is linked to a previous one aimed at altering evidence. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the catchall provision must be read in context. Since the Jan. 6 defendants were not accused of altering evidence, he said, the catchall provision did not apply.

Other members of the court’s conservative majority said that reading the catchall provision in isolation would allow prosecutions of all sorts of protesters.

Two members of the court’s liberal wing responded that the catchall provision was broad by design and not tethered to the previous clause. Congress had meant, they said, to give prosecutors tools to address situations that the lawmakers could not anticipate.

The effect of a ruling rejecting the use of the provision to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants is not completely clear. Most such defendants have not been charged under the provision, which prosecutors have reserved for the most serious cases, and those who have been charged under it face other counts as well.

The defendant in Tuesday’s case, Joseph W. Fischer, for instance, faces six other charges.

Nor is it clear that a ruling in Mr. Fischer’s favor would erase any charges against Mr. Trump under the law. Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal election interference case against the former president, has said Mr. Trump’s conduct could be considered a crime under even a narrow reading of the 2002 law.

Whatever the larger consequences of the court’s ruling, expected by late June, several justices on Tuesday seemed troubled by the government’s interpretation of the law, saying it would allow many other kinds of prosecutions.

“Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify?” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch asked. “Would a heckler in today’s audience qualify, or at the State of the Union address? Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?”

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. allowed that “what happened on Jan. 6 was very, very serious.” But he added that the prosecutors’ theory could reach, say, protests in the Supreme Court’s courtroom, which have occurred from time to time.

Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the U.S. solicitor general, began her argument by recalling the events of Jan. 6, saying that what some of the participants did that day amounted to obstruction covered by the law.

“On Jan. 6, 2021, a violent mob stormed the United States Capitol and disrupted the peaceful transition of power,” she said. “Many crimes occurred that day, but in plain English, the fundamental wrong committed by many of the rioters, including petitioner, was a deliberate attempt to stop the joint session of Congress from certifying the results of the election. That is, they obstructed Congress’s work in that official proceeding.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked how to distinguish the attack on the Capitol from other actions that have disrupted official proceedings. “Tell me why I shouldn’t be concerned about the breadth of the government’s reading?” she asked.

The law at issue in the case was enacted in the wake of the collapse of the energy giant Enron.

Mr. Fischer, a former police officer, was charged with violating it and with six other crimes. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh asked why the other charges were insufficient.

“Why aren’t those six counts good enough just from the Justice Department’s perspective given that they don’t have any of the hurdles?” he asked.

Ms. Prelogar responded that the other counts did not fully reflect Mr. Fischer’s culpability.

The law was prompted by accounting fraud and the destruction of documents, but the provision is written in broad terms.

At least part of what the law meant to accomplish was to address a gap in the federal criminal code: It was a crime to persuade others to destroy records relevant to an investigation or official proceeding but not to do so oneself. The law sought to close that gap.

It did that in a two-part provision. The first part makes it a crime to corruptly alter, destroy or conceal evidence to frustrate official proceedings. The second part, at issue in Mr. Fischer’s case, makes it a crime “otherwise” to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding.

The heart of the case is at the pivot from the first part to the second. The ordinary meaning of “otherwise,” prosecutors say, is “in a different manner.” That means, they say, that the obstruction of official proceedings need not involve the destruction of evidence. The second part, they say, is broad catchall applying to all sorts of conduct.

Justice Elena Kagan said the catchall provision was a purposefully broad reaction to the Enron debacle.

“What Enron convinced them of was that there were gaps in these statutes,” she said of the lawmakers who enacted it.

She added: “But they didn’t know exactly what those gaps were. So they said, let’s have a backstop provision. And this is their backstop provision.”

Justice Sotomayor agreed. “They wanted to cover every base, and they didn’t do it in a logical way, but they managed to cover every base,” she said.

Jeffrey T. Green, a lawyer for Mr. Fischer, said the court should not interpret the 2002 law to create a crime of breathtaking scope that would allow prosecutors to charge political protesters and others with felonies carrying 20-year prison sentences.

He said that the first part of the provision must inform and limit the second one — to obstruction linked to the destruction of evidence. They would read “otherwise,” in other words, as “similarly.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., citing a unanimous opinion he wrote last week, appeared to agree. “The general phrase,” he said, “is controlled and defined by reference to the terms that precede it,” he said. “The ‘otherwise’ phrase is more general, and the terms that precede it are ‘alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record or document.’”

The case is one of several on the court’s docket this term affecting or involving Mr. Trump. In a separate case to be argued next week, the justices will consider Mr. Trump’s claim that he is totally immune from prosecution.

Mr. Fischer is accused of entering the Capitol around 3:24 p.m. on Jan. 6, with the counting of electoral ballots having been suspended after the initial assault.

He had told a superior in a text message, prosecutors said, that “it might get violent.” In another, he wrote that “they should storm the capital and drag all the democrates into the street and have a mob trial.”

Prosecutors say that videos showed Mr. Fischer yelling “Charge!” before pushing through the crowd, using a vulgar term to berate police officers and crashing into a line of them.

Mr. Fischer’s lawyers dispute some of this. But the question for the justices is legal, not factual: Does the 2002 law cover what Mr. Fischer is accused of?

As the end of the argument neared, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, indicated that she had reservations about the government’s position, saying that the court should not lose sight of “the backdrop of a real-world context.”

“It was in the wake of Enron,” she said. “There was document destruction, and, you know, there was nothing as far as I can tell in the enactment history as it was recorded that suggests that Congress was thinking about obstruction more generally.”

How the Merriam-Webster Dictionary word of the year helps people build mental resilience

Merriam-Webster Dictionary has a long-standing tradition of posting the top word of the year, and this year it was “authentic.”

The dictionary explained that in 2023, “authentic” had “a substantial increase in 2023, driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.”

The editor of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Peter Sokolowski, told The Associated Press , “We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity. What we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more.”

What is the true meaning of authenticity?

University of California, Berkeley, described authenticity as the following four characteristics:

• “Bringing one’s ‘whole self’ to work or a relationship rather than putting on a fake face to please others.
• Speaking one’s mind and letting others know where they stand on things, even if what they have to say isn’t particularly popular.
• Taking responsibility for one’s actions and not blaming them on someone else.
• Keeping promises; following through on the things they say they will do for themselves and others.”
• Why is Merriam-Webster’s 2023 word of the year ‘authentic’?

What is the value of authenticity?

A study published by Frontiers in Neurology in August 2023 suggests authenticity can make a person more resilient throughout their life and decrease stress.

Researchers surveyed undergraduates impacted by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. They assessed how authentic the young college students believed themselves to be on the authenticity scale . Those who scored themselves lower reported higher stress levels nine weeks after the hurricane than those with higher authenticity scores.

The publication also referred to a study which found authenticity to be correlated with life satisfaction and high self-esteem, while negatively associated with anxiety and depression. It described authenticity as “an important aspect of healthy psychological functioning and positive subjective well-being.”

Researchers of the study Brian Goldman and Michael Kernis said, “Other research has found that self-determination (i.e., autonomous self-regulation) is related to higher levels of, and more stable, feelings of self-worth”

How can authenticity help dementia patients?

Being authentic not only helps an individual’s own mental health, but the study showed authenticity helping caregivers work with dementia patients more effectively.

Patients with dementia have a complicated view of the self, since many can’t remember current aspects of their life. However, the study lists ways to help people with dementia still feel like themselves, including using visual art eduction. It said, “The self persists despite cognitive impairment or dementia and that a participatory artistic intervention may promote authentic living in people with dementia in care homes.”

The study also urges caregivers to be more authentic when interacting with dementia patients. The example included describes a person with dementia searching for a family member who already passed away. Though it’s easier to go along with the patient than tell them the truth, acting authentically can improve the relationship between the caregiver and the patient, grounding it in reality.

“If caregivers of older people apply concepts of authenticity to both understanding the person for whom they care and to their own experience in a caring role, this may improve resilience and prevent burnout,” the study included.

Authenticity builds trust not only with dementia patients, friends, family, co-workers and more, but it helps individuals trust themselves.