Argued December 4, 2023 Decided October 22, 2024

No. 22-3042

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE

v.

COUY GRIFFIN, APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:21-cr-00092-1)

Lisa B. Wright, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A. J. Kramer, Federal Public Defender. Tony Axam Jr., Assistant Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance.

Daniel J. Lenerz, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Chrisellen R. Kolb and Nicholas P. Coleman, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. James Pearce, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, entered an appearance.

Before: PILLARD and KATSAS, Circuit Judges, and ROGERS, Senior Circuit Judge. 2 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge KATSAS.

PILLARD, Circuit Judge: This appeal turns on interpretation of a federal law enacted to better protect the President and other national leaders from assassination, kidnapping, and assault. The law creates a narrow domain of federal trespass authority to prevent unauthorized members of the public from getting too close to a person under Secret Service protection. It does so by empowering the Secret Service to prevent unauthorized people from knowingly encroaching on “posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted” safety zones where the President or Vice President (current or past), a leading candidate for such office, or any of a handful of other Secret Service protectees “is or will be temporarily visiting.” 18 U.S.C. § 1752(c)(1)(B).

The defendant says a person “knowingly enters” the restricted safety zone only if he knows that the basis of the restriction is to safeguard a Secret Service protectee. Id. § 1752(a)(1). We hold that knowingly breaching the restricted area suffices, even without knowing the basis of the restriction—here, the presence of Vice President Pence at the Capitol on January 6—which merely confirms that such trespasses are within Congress’s legislative authority. Traditional tools of statutory interpretation establish that Congress intended to criminalize trespasses endangering Secret Service protectees regardless of the trespasser’s awareness of the basis for Congress’s authority to regulate them. And a contrary interpretation would impair the Secret Service’s ability to protect its charges. It would require Secret Service agents preventing members of the public from encroaching on a temporary security zone to confirm that each intruder knows that a person under Secret Service protection is 3 or is expected to be there. Neither the text nor the context of the statute supports that reading.

Couy Griffin knowingly intruded into the area of the United States Capitol grounds that had been restricted in order to protect Vice President Pence on January 6, 2021, during the counting of the electoral college votes for President. Griffin came to the Capitol that day along with thousands of other people to try to stop the certification of the electors’ ballots. He breached the boundary established to prevent public access and remained for approximately two hours in the restricted area while the Capitol Police struggled, facing serious injury and even death, to control the mob that overwhelmed them and broke into the Capitol Building.

Following a bench trial, the district court convicted Griffin of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1), which prohibits “knowingly enter[ing] or remain[ing] in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so.” “Restricted building or grounds” refers to a limited number of “posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restri