U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Obama, often has handed down prison sentences in Jan. 6, 2021, riot cases that are harsher than Justice Department prosecutors recommended.
She is one of two dozen judges in Washington, D.C., who collectively have sentenced nearly 600 defendants for their roles in the Jan. 6 siege. More than one third of them avoided sentences that included incarceration.
Other judges typically have handed down sentences that are more lenient than those requested by prosecutors. Chutkan, however, has matched or exceeded prosecutors' recommendations in 19 of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren't seeking any jail time at all.