Former Shaler teacher charged in Capitol riot will remain in custody pending trial

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., again denied a request for pretrial release for a former Shaler substitute teacher charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Robert Morss, who has been in custody since his arrest, is scheduled for trial in August.

He filed a motion for reconsideration of pretrial release last month. In it, his attorney told U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden that Morss, 28, had no infractions during his incarceration and that he believes his client’s right to a speedy trial has been violated.

Attorney John C. Kiyonaga, who represents Morss, wrote in the motion that the government has reversed the normal order of prosecution by arresting defendants in the Capitol riot before investigating their conduct.

That, he said, has led to continual delays in the prosecution turning over its evidence for the defense to review.

“His circumstance – entirely of the government’s creation – presents defendants confined pretrial with the untenable choice between surrendering their due process right to discovery by expeditious resolution of their cases or languishing for however long it takes the government to make up the time it should have expended prior to bringing the charges,” he said.

Kiyonago described Morss’s pretrial incarceration as “oppressive.”

Morss is one of nine co-defendants in the case. They are accused of attacking a police line in the Lower West Tunnel that day. The government has called Morss “the initial aggressor” in court filings.

The initial complaint filed against Morss, a former Army Ranger, said he worked to organize other rioters by making a shield wall. Authorities said he also struggled with officers in an attempt to get a baton and helmet visor away from them, and fought with them over control of a flag pole.

In his order, McFadden called Morss’s motion “meritless,” and said that his detention has been neither punitive nor oppressive.

He said that delay in the case has been caused by the prosecution of so many defendants at once, not in the speed with which the government has turned over its evidence.

“The presence of so many parties has forced the court to juggle its own schedule with that of nine defense counsel,” the judge wrote.

Further, he continued, there have been far more defense motions filed in the case than on average. He called the case “undeniably complex.”

“And it is Morss’s own alleged conduct that places him among eight others,” McFadden said. “He allegedly participated in a mob attack against police in the Lower West Tunnel. His decision to join a violent crowd then has led him into such a crowded trial now.”