A Strawman pleads guilty!

[Burnaby49]

A bit of an oldy but goldy to do with a 2005 Canadian conviction for failing to file income tax returns. I just found it dredging through the detrius of the Canadian DeTax underworld. What makes it unusual is the defendant pled guilty to the charges thinking that the guilty plea only appplied to his Strawman and not to him. "I'll throw my Strawman under the bus, let that sucker take the rap!" Apparently he got this brilliant legal idea from Eldon Warman. He was stunned to find that the court and the CRA considered that it was the human being part of the duo who had pleaded guilty, not his fictitious alter-ego.

[5] When the judge was going to commence the trial and the Crown was going to start calling witnesses, the applicant intervened and said that he would enter a guilty plea. Again, he purported to be acting as agent on behalf of the person charged. The plea was accepted and then the sentence hearing proceeded. Again, at the end of the sentence submissions the applicant denied that he was the person that sentence should be imposed on, but rather he was the agent for that person.

He appealed his conviction, and won, on the basis that he was apparently too dense to understand what pleading guilty actually meant. The appeals court ordered a new trial but I can't find any indication it was held. I'm guessing the Crown just couldn't be bothered.

R. v. Hardy, 2006 BCSC 1952
R. v. Hardy, 2007 BCSC 125
R. v. Hardy, 2007 BCCA 523

Another decision I found wallowing in the same muck was one I remember being passed around the Canada Revenue Agency as a bit of light comedy. A Canadian taxpayer, assessed for $110,650.81, paid with 110,651 Columbian pesos, worth about $75. His brilliant legal argument?

[8] Mr. Weber"s main issue is that, in his view, Revenue Canada made an offer to him, in the form of the Tax Certificate, to settle at $110,650.81: critical here, in Mr. Weber"s view, is the dollar sign with one bar through it. Mr. Weber"s submission is that a Canadian dollar sign has two vertical bars, but a peso has only one vertical bar. The offer, being in Mr. Weber"s view, in pesos, worth about seventy-five Canadian dollars, was one he could not refuse. Thus he tendered Columbia peso notes.

Stupid but certainly novel, the guy was thinking outside the box.

http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/200 ... ZXIAAAAAAQ

[Arthur Rubin]

It would be interesting to see the strawman's briefs (no -- absolutely no -- pun intended) as to whether he could find a typewriter with both 1-bar and 2-bar dollar signs. (I assume submissions were required to be typed at that time.)

[Kestrel]

Right. Who died and made Weber the Chancellor of the Exchequer / Minister of Finance / whatever? Given all the different nations which use dollar symbols, it must be nice to have the right to dictate which one of those many different currencies is applicable.

I'm sure there is at least one other currency which commonly uses a single-bar dollar sign, and which was worth MORE than the Canadian dollar in 1999.

[Burnaby49]

Right. Who died and made Weber the Chancellor of the Exchequer / Minister of Finance / whatever? Given all the different nations which use dollar symbols, it must be nice to have the right to dictate which one of those many different currencies is applicable.

I'm sure there is at least one other currency which commonly uses a single-bar dollar sign, and which was worth MORE than the Canadian dollar in 1999.

Actually I didn't include Weber just because of his somewhat novel idea (duly noted he chose not to use the $US which would have increase his tax bill) but because it actually had serious ramifications for him including a criminal conviction. What I posted was his first attempt to force the CRA to accept pesos. When that didn't work he appealed the siezure of his stuff to the Federal Court of Appeal. His appeal was actually dismissed by a future Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada!

http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fca/doc/200 ... ZXIAAAAAAQ

However a man on a quest for the holy grail isn't deterred that easily and Weber continued on his lonely road. Representing himself, he was was convicted in Provincial Court of two counts of failing to file income tax returns. He appealed this but his appeal fell apart because he got caught up in some squabble about wanting a CD ROM of his court proceedings and the court refused to supply him with one. He wanted to compare this to the transcript (which he did not have in any case) because he said the tramscript included "faulty trial records which are fraudulent and bear intentional alterations, errors and omissions". In the end the Alberta Court of Appeal told him to take a hike;

http://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abca/doc/20 ... ZXIAAAAAAQ

He appealed this loss to the Supreme Court of Canada but leave to appeal was denied.

I can't find any trace of him after that but he certainly seemed to tie his life in a knot over what was essentially a whimsical idea.

[Kestrel]

Actually I didn't include Weber just because of his somewhat novel idea (duly noted he chose not to use the $US which would have increase his tax bill) but because it actually had serious ramifications for him including a criminal conviction. What I posted was his first attempt to force the CRA to accept pesos. When that didn't work he appealed the siezure of his stuff to the Federal Court of Appeal. His appeal was actually dismissed by a future Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada!

However a man on a quest for the holy grail isn't deterred that easily and Weber continued on his lonely road...

Stories like this make an otherwise ordinary day just start off better. So glad you're here.