A federal judge on Friday dismissed with prejudice the criminal case against four Proud Boys members convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, while emphasizing that the decision was compelled by executive authority rather than judicial agreement.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly granted the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the case against Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola after their convictions were vacated on appeal following President Donald Trump's Jan. 20, 2025, clemency order for Jan. 6 defendants.

In a seven-page memorandum, Kelly wrote that Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and separation-of-powers principles left the court with little discretion to reject the government's request.

"The Constitution and Rule 48(a) require it," Kelly wrote, while stressing that "no one should mistake the Court's granting of the Government's motion for its agreement with those decisions."

Kelly, a Trump appointee, underscored the seriousness of the Jan. 6 attack, calling it "a perilous event" that assaulted police officers, Congress, and "the Constitution's mechanism to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next."

"If this Nation's experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years," he wrote, "the American people, no matter their partisan preferences, will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework."

The Justice Department argued the dismissal was "in the interests of justice," consistent with Trump's executive order directing the attorney general to seek dismissal with prejudice of pending Jan. 6 cases.

Kelly noted the government's request was mandated by that order and that courts generally lack authority to second-guess prosecutorial charging decisions.

The dismissal is largely symbolic because Trump had already commuted the prison sentences of Nordean, Biggs, Rehl, and Pezzola and granted Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio a full pardon.

The ruling formally closes one of the Justice Department's highest-profile Jan. 6 prosecutions.

Pezzola had been convicted of breaking a Capitol window with a stolen police riot shield, creating what Kelly described as "the first entry point through which hundreds of rioters streamed into the building."

Following the ruling, Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys, celebrated the dismissal in a social media post, saying he and his co-defendants would continue pursuing a civil lawsuit accusing the Justice Department of malicious prosecution.

A similar Justice Department request to dismiss seditious conspiracy cases against members of the Oath Keepers remains pending before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.