Seditious conspiracy is a crime in various jurisdictions ofconspiring against the authority or legitimacy of the state. As a form ofsedition, it has been described as a serious but lesser counterpart totreason, targeting activities that undermine the state without directly attacking it.[1]
Incommon law jurisdictions, seditious conspiracy is an agreement by two or more persons to do any act with theintention to excite hatred or contempt against the persons or institutions of state, to excite the alteration by unlawful means of a state or church matter established by law, to raise discontent among the people, or to promote ill will and enmity between classes. Criticising a policy or state institution for the purpose of obtaining lawful reform is not seditious.[2] Seditious conspiracy, like other forms of sedition, developed during thelate medieval period to apply to activities that threatened the social order but fell short ofconstructive treason. Enforcement of both types of offence under theTudors andStuarts grew increasingly harsh; courts judged the accused's intentions suspiciously, allowing juries to decide only whether the alleged events had occurred. A trend ofjury nullifications in the 18th century ultimately limited the scope of seditious crimes.[3]
Charges of seditious conspiracy were notably brought in theUnited Kingdom against Irish radicals andChartists in the 19th century[2][4] before being abolished in 2010.[5] The charge has been used against labour activists in both Canada and Australia, such as the leaders of the 1919Winnipeg general strike and theSydney Twelve. InBritish India, the charge was used to imprison independence activists, and the extension of their imprisonment by the 1919Rowlatt Act led toMahatma Gandhi's call fornonviolent resistance.
In Canada, the maximum sentence for seditious conspiracy is 14 years in jail.[6]
In the United States, seditious conspiracy is codified at18 U.S.C. § 2384:
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
This law was enacted in 1861 after secessionists gained control of mostslaveholding states as theConfederate States of America, although it was originally sought by SenatorStephen A. Douglas in response toJohn Brown's 1859raid on a federal arsenal. A substantially similar offense appeared in theSedition Act of 1798 signed by PresidentJohn Adams to suppress theDemocratic-Republican Party's criticisms of theQuasi-War.[7] However, the law was deeply unpopular and was allowed to expire afterThomas Jefferson defeated Adams in the1800 presidential election. AfterNat Turner's Rebellion, theVirginia General Assembly amended the stateslave codes to enact charges similar to seditious conspiracy againstslaves andfree blacks who held unauthorized assemblies or ledslave rebellions.[8][9]
Puerto Rican nationalists seeking the island's independence from the United States have been charged and convicted on multiple occasions. In 1936,Pedro Albizu Campos and other leaders of thePuerto Rican Nationalist Party were prosecuted. Another seventeen members of the PRNP were charged after four of them carried out the1954 Capitol shooting. In 1980, Puerto Rican NationalistCarmen Valentín Pérez and nine others were charged, and were each given sentences of up to 90 years in prison.[10]
Seditious conspiracy charges have been brought several times against far-right groups. In 1940, the government arrested seventeen members of theChristian Front, followers of fascistic broadcaster FatherCharles Coughlin. All of the charges ended in dismissal or acquittal.[11]Edwin Walker, a formerArmyMajor General, was arrested for seditious conspiracy andinsurrection in 1962 after he incited asegregationist riot to prevent the admission of black studentJames Meredith at theUniversity of Mississippi; the charges were dismissed. In the 1987Fort Smith sedition trial,Louis Beam and nine other white supremacists were indicted for the activities ofThe Order andThe Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. All ten defendants and four other defendants indicted for different crimes were acquitted in April 1988 after a two-month trial.
In 2010 theUnited States Department of Justice attempted to prosecute theChristian nationalistHutaree militia ofLenawee County, Michigan, for seditious conspiracy. JudgeVictoria A. Roberts of theUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ordered the seditious conspiracy charges to be dismissed under First Amendment grounds.[12][13]
Several members ofAmerican far-right militias were charged with seditious conspiracy for their participation in theJanuary 6 United States Capitol attack, in which a mob of the outgoing PresidentDonald Trump's supporters attacked theUnited States Capitol in an attempt to prevent the2021 United States Electoral College vote count formally certifying his successorJoe Biden's victory in the2020 United States presidential election.
NineOath Keepers were found guilty of seditious conspiracy to stop thepresidential transition of Joe Biden.[14][15][16]
Three other Oath Keeper leaders were acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge.[22]
In June 2022, fiveProud Boys leaders, including their former chairmanEnrique Tarrio, were similarly charged.[23] In October, a sixth Proud Boy leader pled guilty to seditious conspiracy, as well as a weapons charge, as part of a cooperation agreement.[24] On May 4, 2023,Tarrio and three of the other Proud Boys leaders —Ethan Nordean,Joe Biggs, and Zachary Rehl — were found guilty of seditious conspiracy.[25] On September 5, 2023, Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. During sentencing, stating the reasoning behind the lengthy sentence, JudgeTimothy J. Kelly quoted theseditious conspiracy statute, stating that Tarrio committed a “serious offense” and that he was the "ultimate leader of that conspiracy...motivated by revolutionary zeal.”[26]
U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors involved in the seditious conspiracy cases against the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers attempted to block the defendants from blaming Trump in their defenses on the basis that he had no political authority to order such a conspiracy.[27]
Upon Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025, he commuted the sentences of six of the Oath Keepers (Rhodes, Meggs, Minuta, Vallejo, Moerschel, and Hackett) and three of the Proud Boys (Nordean, Biggs, Rehl) who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy. Three more Oath Keepers and two more Proud Boys who had been convicted of other charges also received commutations. Their sentences were commuted to "time served," allowing them to be released from prison immediately, but their convictions stood. Apart from these 14 commutations, everyone else convicted ofoffenses related to the Capitol attack, who by then numbered over a thousand, was granted "a full, complete and unconditional pardon".[28]
After thepublic hearings of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, some legal analysts and political commentators argued that enough evidence existed to indict Trump himself for seditious conspiracy either in connection with the attack or hisattempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election in general.[29][30][31] President Biden and certain special interest groups such as theNational Association of Manufacturers had already previously accused Trump of sedition for his speech at the rally before the attack.[8] Ultimately, however, whileTrump was charged with four counts, seditious conspiracy was not among them.
In 1995 SheikhOmar Abdel-Rahman, a prominentMuslim cleric, and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy for planning tobomb New York City landmarks after the1993 World Trade Center bombing.[32]
In 1996, after hisDeclaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places statingal-Qaeda's intention to carry out terrorist attacks on the United States, theUnited States Attorney for the Southern District of New York allowed theFederal Bureau of Investigation to begin investigatingOsama bin Laden under the charge of seditious conspiracy.[33]
The government charged three members of theBuffalo, New York-based El Ariete Society, a communist group, in 1920. The defendants were acquitted by a judge as the government failed to prove that the defendants had any connection with the seditious publications that were presented as evidence, or that any active conspiracy had existed.[34]
Three members of theUnited Freedom Front, a Marxist group, were convicted in 1989 for a series of attacks against corporate, government, and military targets.[35]
commute the sentences of the following individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, to time served as of January 20, 2025: Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Thomas Caldwell, Jessica Watkins, Roberto Minuta, Edward Vallejo, David Moerschel, Joseph Hackett, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, Dominic Pezzola, Jeremy Bertino