Texas couple allegedly assaulted by police while praying on Jan. 6 sentenced to rot in prison

A Texas married couple who said police assaulted them while they were praying on Jan. 6 were sentenced to years in prison Oct. 22 on felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from their time outside the U.S. Capitol during protests and subsequent rioting.

Mark Fulton Middleton, 54, and Jalise Kay Middleton, 54, of Forestburg, Texas, had asked U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss to sentence them to home detention and probation, while the U.S. Department of Justice sought sentences of 7.25 years in prison for each.

Judge Moss sentenced Mark Middleton to 30 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, while he gave Jalise Middleton 20 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

In February, the Middletons were found guilty by a Washington, D.C., jury of assaulting, resisting, or impeding two police officers, civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct, engaging in physical violence and several other related misdemeanors.

‘The officer was pulling her scarf and choking her.’

A guilty verdict on the felony charge of obstruction of an official proceeding was dismissed in September due to the June 2024 Supreme Court ruling in Fischer v. United States. That opinion vastly limits use of an accounting-fraud statute — 18 U.S. Code §1512(c)(2) — to prosecute cases that are not related to documents or other evidence. It was the most widely charged felony in Jan. 6 cases.

The crux of the Middletons’ case was what took place at the police line on the Capitol’s West Plaza at about 2:10 p.m. on Jan. 6. The large crowd on the north side of the plaza pressed against the bike racks police were using to hold demonstrators back.

Police on the west front had been lobbing explosive munitions and firing other projectiles into the crowd for more than an hour, Capitol Police security video showed. A grenade exploded six-people deep in the crowd about a minute before the Middletons had their tangle with police, security video showed. Tear gas swirled about in the stiff wind.

The Middletons say if police had not picked up the bike rack barricades and pushed them into the protesters, they would not have made contact with the officers. What prosecutors described as the couple preparing to throw their bodies against the police line was actually the Middletons facing each other and praying, a defense attorney said.

“The videos do show that at one point, Mrs. Middleton’s scarf was being pulled by a police officer and Mr. Middleton has testified that he tried to pull Mrs. Middleton away from the police line and to have the police let go of his wife,” wrote defense attorney Stephen Brennwald in Mark Middleton’s 21-page sentencing memo.

An incendiary grenade is lobbed into the crowd by a Metropolitan Police Department officer at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Not far away, Mark and Jalise Middleton scuffle with police at the barricades.U.S. Capitol Police CCTV

“That is a natural reaction that any person would have, even if the two people hadn’t been married for decades as the Middletons have,” he said.

Brennwald said there is no question that police initiated contact with the Middletons and others nearby.

“Her behavior only happened because she was assaulted first—hit by a police officer and pushed by a large violent protester behind her,” defense attorney Kira West wrote in Jalise Middleton’s 27-page sentencing memo.

“The officer was pulling her scarf and choking her and Ms. Middleton indiscriminately swatted at him to escape what she perceived was going to be her sudden death,” West said.

Prosecutors took a dimmer view of the 5- to 7-second encounter.

“Mark Middleton heckled police officers, including by shouted obscenities,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean McCauley and Brendan Ballou in a 47-page sentencing supplemental memo. “Together, the Middletons then threw their bodies into the barricades. When officers tried to restore the barricades and ordered them to get back, both the Middletons assaulted two officers.”

‘I felt responsible to let my voice be heard and make a difference.’

Prosecutors cited the political speech of both Middletons since Jan. 6 and accused them of “spreading falsehoods.”

“Mark Middleton has used his Twitter to trumpet—on an at least daily if not almost hourly basis—convicted January 6 rioters, promulgate conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, and spread baseless lies about January 6,” prosecutors wrote.

The Middletons bragged about their deeds on social media and lied under oath during their trial, the DOJ said.

“They have sought to personally benefit by using the notoriety of their crimes to raise money and seek fame,” the DOJ wrote.

West rejected claims her client lied at the trial.

“Ms. Middleton made no false statements while testifying. Her testimony lines up with the video evidence in the case as well as other testimony and videos from other J6 trials,” West wrote.

The Middletons had a right to exercise freedom of speech regarding their concerns over the 2020 presidential election, West said.

“When this court considers all of the factors before it, the court must conclude that these are not the actions of someone there to overthrow the government or incite violence, but rather a concerned citizen who believed the election was stolen,” West said.

Married couple Mark and Jalise Middleton of Forestburg, Texas, either assaulting police on Jan. 6, 2021, as prosecutors claim or defending themselves after police pulled hard on Jalise Middleton’s scarf as a defense attorney asserts.

Photo from Metropolitan Police Department Bodycam

In his sentencing memo for Mark Middleton, Brennwald said he was not suggesting the Middletons “should have been where they were in the first place” or that police “did not have the right to, in some manner, move the crowd away from its location.”

“But the aggressiveness demonstrated by the police in this instance was not the finest example of police behavior, and ended up being counter-productive, as it inflamed passions in the crowd,” he wrote.

In an Oct. 19 letter to Judge Moss, Jalise Middleton said she was in fight-or-flight mode when the incident occurred.

“I felt responsible to let my voice be heard and make a difference,” she wrote of her decision to come to Washington, D.C. “The truth is, Jesus Christ makes the difference. My only job that day was to pray and stand firm. Amidst the chaos that quickly ensued, I forgot to trust him.”

“Furthermore, I do passionately believe my actions that day were consistent with what any person would have done in our shoes,” Jalise Middleton wrote.

The FBI seized Jalise Middleton’s wedding ring while executing a search warrant at the couple’s home. Agents then took it with them. The Middletons have been married since May 1990.

“Wouldn’t a photograph of it suffice?” West asked. “Apparently not.”

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