Left inset: Donald Trump speaks at the annual Road to Majority conference in Washington, DC, June 22, 2024. (Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP). Center inset: Derek Kinnison (Justice Department). Right inset: Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia). Background: Violent insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump breach the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021 (AP Photo/John Minchillo).
A federal judge has swatted a request from another Jan. 6 defendant seeking a refund of restitution now that he has been pardoned by President Donald Trump, marking the fifth time that someone on the bench in Washington, D.C. has rejected a reimbursement request.
The latest refusal came on Wednesday from Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who already has one rejection under his belt. The defendant, Derek Kinnison, 42, of Lake Elsinore, was convicted and sentenced to 33 months in prison for taking part in the 2021 Capitol attack with members of the Three Percenter militia, according to the Justice Department.
Like his colleagues in the district, Lamberth pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court”s 1877 decision in Knote v. United States, which described a pardon as “an act of grace” that does not restore “rights or property once vested in others in consequence of the conviction and judgment” — echoing their reasoning in a five-page order.
He also took Kinnison to the legal woodshed for attempting to prop up another Supreme Court case, Nelson v. Colorado, where a group of pardoned defendants successfully sought recovery of criminal payments they had deposited into state accounts after their convictions were reversed — one on appeal for trial error and one in post-conviction proceedings, according to Lamberth.
“The defendant attempts to draw a parallel between the reversal of the petitioners’ convictions in Nelson and the vacatur of his conviction by the D.C. Circuit,” said Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee. “But here, the defendant’s conviction was not reversed; rather, the only reason the conviction was vacated by the Circuit is that the defendant received a presidential pardon. And in any event, the court’s power to order a refund does not turn on whether the defendant’s conviction was vacated; it turns on whether he is entitled to the funds. The defendant paid the full $2,350, and it was deposited.”
Lamberth noted how the government attempted to “save the defendant’s argument” by referring to the deposit of funds in the Treasury as “erroneous.” The funds at issue here were not “erroneously received,” he concluded, noting the nation’s highest court “made clear” in Knote that while “a pardon is an act of grace,” it ultimately “does not make amends for the past.”
“The defendant’s conviction was fully ‘in force’ at the time he paid the $2,350 in assessments and restitution,” Lamberth concluded, citing Knote. “Therefore, the funds were not ‘erroneously received’ by the Treasury, and the court will not — indeed, it may not — order a refund here.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan was the last person on the bench in Washington to deny a restitution and fine refund. Stacy Hager, 61, was charged and convicted in 2023 of four misdemeanors related to the Capitol breach. He requested a $570 refund in February. Federal prosecutors signed off on Hager’s request, as they did with Kinnison and other Jan. 6 defendants, saying there was “no longer any basis justifying the government’s retaining funds.” Chutkan was not convinced and cited previous rejections.
“At least three other judges in this district have denied similar motions where defendants sought reimbursement for fines and fees associated with their now pardoned criminal convictions,” the Barack Obama appointee wrote in her three-page order on July 3. “The government concurs, acknowledging that pardons generally do not ‘make amends for the past’ nor do they afford any ‘relief for what has been suffered by the offender,'” Chutkan said. “But it takes the curious position that in this ‘unusual situation,’ reimbursement is appropriate.”
Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg and U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss are the other District of Columbia judges who have turned down requests from Jan. 6 defendants in recent months.
Boasberg, a Barack Obama appointee, rebuffed a request from a Maryland couple on June 30 who asked for roughly $1,000 in restitution to be returned. Moss, another Obama appointee, said no to a former U.S. Marine from New Jersey; Lamberth previously denied Utah defendant John Sullivan.
Trump’s mass pardon of Jan. 6 rioters earlier this year granted clemency to more than 1,500 defendants.
