Sherry Peel Jackson Conviction -- Reports from Trial

[Joey Smith]

From http://www.triallogs.com

Fred Marashall was kind enough to author the following after leaving Sherry's trial.

Tuesday evening, October 30, 2007

This is a sad day. I presume most people know by now that Sherry was convicted of all four counts of WFTF by a mind-numbed indoctrinated jury of the kind of people we walk among every day. I left the courthouse at 5:20 and drove 100 miles to Columbus, Georgia and took my son out for dinner. I will write my account and impressions before I read anyone else's comments.

At the end of the court days on Monday and Tuesday I called Mark Yannone and David Jahn and gave them brief comments on my observations.


Let me begin by creating a mental vision of the setting. The trial was held in Judge Orenda D. Evans' Courtroom 1908, on the 19th Floor of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in Atlanta. The building is a vulgar, massive, cavernous 26-story monument to federal power. I couldn't help but compare it with the palaces Saddam Hussein built to flaunt his power.


Atlanta Skyscrapers



The building is accessible to the handicapped, provided they arrive at the front door by limo, have a motorized power chair with a fully-charged battery (or a wheelchair and a valet to push it half a mile around the two tiers of steps to get to the entrance via gradual ramp ascension). I won't bother

describing all the obscene waste that is so conspicuously displayed in this $120 Million (1980 dollars) tower of power with all its wasted space, 20-25 foot ceilings, long climatized empty hallways and nearly two dozen elevators.


Underground parking is available for employees only, 20% of whom are uniformed security "officers," half of whom probably wouldn't qualify to load baggage at airports. For the peasants who are forced by a myriad of laws to visit the building, there is one outdoor parking lot outside the first basement level, for those able approach on the right one-way street after making three consecutive right turns on other one-way street. If you get in by 9 AM, you can park all day for $5. If you arrive at or after 9 AM (as I did, at 9:02 AM the second day), the rate is $13.

In my two-day experience there, I found only two entrances available to the public, both equipped with elaborate and intimidating screening/search/x-ray stations staffed by no fewer than six federal security personnel. All who I encountered spoke English, thank goodness. After I emptied all my pockets into the X-ray tray, they had me prop myself against the wall (for stability) so they could run my crutches through the X-ray compartment on a conveyer belt, and one of the nice gentlemen was kind enough to bring them back to me so I could advance to the entrance to a long, high-ceiling, otherwise useless, hallway to the elevators. The first place I found to sit down and catch my breath was on two very hard and very expensive benches, fashioned from some exotic wood, in the area outside Courtroom 1908 on the 19th floor, having arrived there after being sent to the 22nd floor to the court clerk's office to find out where Sherry's trial was to be held. There were no seats of any kind visible anywhere around the landing at the 22nd floor.

I was physically exhausted by the time I arrived outside the empty courtroom at 8:30 the first morning after having been delivered at the front by a taxi driver from Zimbabwe who spoke very little English and said he could only take me to the FederalBuilding if I could tell him which way to go and where to turn. For the 9-mile journey from the hotel at North Druid Hills, I paid $25, which included a 45-cent tip (the meter read $24.55). The tip was because he didn't miss any of the turns I told him to take.

By court time, quite a number of supporters had arrived. The highest count was at 3 P.M. when I counted 46. Spectators are silently discouraged by both the difficult accessibility to the building and the hard and uncomfortable wood benches in the gallery in the back of the courtroom.

To be fair, the acoustics inside the courtroom were great. The lower halves of the walls were padded and carpeted, and the upper halves were elegantly paneled. No one had any difficulty hearing anyone speak in the courtroom. For $120 million, one would expect no less.

Among the supporters were Sherry's father, her husband Colin Jackson, Charlie Beale, Peymon, Vernie Kuglin (whose home was raided by the IRS the preceding Monday), Joe Banister, Gary Thomason (Truth Attack), and a number of others whose names I did not know. Several gave me their names but preferred they not be mentioned, having driven from places like South Florida, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Virginia, Louisiana, and elsewhere.

Sherry, Larry Becraft, and Jeff Dickstein seemed confident.

The jury was selected after the judge asked all 35 prospective jurors a sequence of general questions clearly designed to help the prosecution identify (and eliminate) anyone who worked for, had ever worked for, or knew anyone who had ever worked for the IRS, any government agency, any law enforcement agency, any lawyer or prosecutor, or any sheriff's office. She asked if anyone had ever had any unpleasant experience with any government agency, anyone who had been arrested, anyone who felt (s)he had been unfairly treated by any government or law enforcement agency. She asked if anyone, including immediate family members, had been arrested. She asked for a show of hands of those who had performed jury duty before. She asked if anyone belonged, or had ever belonged, to any organization which opposes the income tax or believes the income tax is unconstitutional. She asked if anyone believed that the IRS ought not have the authority to enforce tax laws or audit the financial records of citizens. Finally, she asked if anyone had ever been involved with any litigation against any government agency.

Thirteen were selected, 12 jurors and one alternate. Selected were:

White single female who works in advertising sales. Estimated age: 32-35

White male who is an account specialist in a Bio-Lab, whose wife is a special ed teacher - age 38-40

White female who works in a medical office for an anesthesiologist, age 30-35

White male who is retired from BellSouth, with wife who was a government accountant - age 65-plus

Black female practical nurse who works in long term health care, 35-ish

White male information technology manager, previously a programmer, age 45-50

White female, stay-at-home-mom who has worked some in consumer marketing, probably 35

White male who works in marketing for a county tax commissioner's office, age 60-65

Hispanic female who works for the American Cancer Society, age 35-ish

White male who is a technical writer for computer technology publications, age 40-42

Black female who is retired from the Social Security Administration, age 55-60

Black male who works on an assembly line in an airplane factory, previously a truck driver, age 33-35

Black female works in supply-ordering for a county government, age 45-50

The Assistant U.S. Attorney, who was the prosecutor, was a short 50-ish man who deceptively seemed inept and ill-prepared throughout most of the first day. I never saw his name in writing and was never able to clearly discern his name when it was mentioned by the Judge and Larry Becraft. He was accompanied at the prosecution table by the IRS case agent and a DOJ tax division representative, all men. They had boxes and boxes of records and manuals. I was surprised when the prosecutor did not vilify Sherry in his seven-minute opening statement.

Larry's opening statement took about 25 minutes and he went into considerable detail regarding the testimony he expected from Sherry. I was surprised that neither the prosecutor objected nor the judge issued any caution. I thought Larry got away with a lot that I had not expected. Things looked pretty promising at that point.

The first witness the prosecutor called consisted of a black female who was hired at the same time Sherry was hired and they went through initial training together. She told a little about their training and the prosecutor focused on the training concerning processing and examining tax returns and other forms, and who has to submit them. She admitted, however, that after the initial 6-8 weeks she had not worked anywhere near Sherry. She also admitted that after that initial flurry of classes, IRS agents get very little training beyond about 40 hours a year of continuing education.

The second witness was a black lady CPA who had been involved with Sherry in a business corporation with three stockholders, all CPA's, who combined to handle a three-year accounting contract for the Georgia State Government. She testified as to how much money Sherry made.

The third witness was a male DOJ fraud investigator who testified as to how much income Sherry allegedly had over the four years covered in her charges. Larry's cross examination did not dispute any of the claims of income, at least not that I recall. The goal, apparently, was to show that Sherry simply did not believe that she was liable for any taxes and therefore was under no obligation to file.

When the prosecutor rested shortly before 4 PM, I think it surprised everyone on "our side."

Sherry took the stand at 4:10 after a short break and testified pretty much as Larry's opening statement had predicted. Hardly any objection was voiced and Judge Evans gave Larry a wide berth. In the course of Sherry's testimony, she told of some of her research and her efforts to find someone to show her a law that made typical Americans liable for income taxes or imposed any duty to file returns. She testified that she had contacted some of her friends at the IRS and asked them to help her find the applicable provisions of law but none had produced any results. She particularly described one man who she also knew from church and mentioned having had lunch with him on a couple of occasions. I don't recall whether she mentioned their names during direct or during cross the following day, but that testimony proved fatal to her case because the prosecutor brought in several of them as rebuttal witnesses and acted as though they hardly knew Sherry and all denied having even discussed the subject with her. Three are currently employed by the IRS and one is retired, so they have their careers and pensions on the line should they go against the IRS with their testimony. Most anyone who knows Sherry believes her and it's no stretch to presume that the rebuttal witnesses lied. Sherry is a high profile opponent and has to be silenced, at whatever cost.

As we were leaving the building Monday afternoon, one supporter overheard the bailiff, who had sat through the trial between the jury and the witness box, in a discussion with a lady with whom he was walking to the parking lot. The lady asked him what kind of case he had in his court today, and his response was that he had another one of those tax evasion cases, and added that "if I have to pay taxes, by God those tax protestors have to pay it too."

When I heard, back at the hotel, of that exchange it immediately occurred to me that most jury members would probably be thinking the same thing, so I wrote a note about it for Larry and suggested that he include something in his closing statement to neutralize that understandable reaction among the jurors. "I realize that some of you may be thinking along those lines, but why not consider that if she hasn't been able to find any such law during her years of research, and therefore isn't liable for paying income taxes, that maybe you jury members might not ought to be paying them either?" Larry considered the suggestion but did not use it, probably because it would never have been allowed.

Sherry resumed her testimony on Tuesday morning, and things still looked great when Larry rested for the prosecution. But when the prosecutor called rebuttal witnesses, things went downhill very fast, as he was very effective in portraying Sherry as a liar whose testimony....all of it....was not to be believed. He made every effort to lead the jury to see her as a greedy woman whose main interest was making money and not paying taxes on it.

From my observation of the jury members, which is nothing more than pure speculation, I thought they were keeping an open mind all the way to the end of Sherry's testimony. I noted visible changes in their expression and their attention level once rebuttal witnesses began denying the conversations and associations Sherry had related.

Larry recalled Sherry as a rebuttal witness, but the prosecutor's objections and the judge's limitations pretty much prevented her from saying anything of any significance.

The prosecutor's closing statement was damaging, tremendously so. Larry's closing statement was mostly a re-hash of his opening statement, and the whole case then hinged on whether or not the jury believed Sherry. They didn't, they returned a guilty verdict in less than 45 minutes. More than half a dozen IRS agents appeared from nowhere and assembled on the front row of the gallery to hear the verdict. They all seem pleased with the verdict. The jury probably just wanted to go home.

The judge thanked the jury, dismissed them, then set the court in recess. She did not mention a sentencing hearing, she gave no instructions to Sherry or Larry, she just recessed the court and left.

I'll write more when I get back to Tennessee and onto my own computer.



Fred

[Dezcad]

I paid $25, which included a 45-cent tip (the meter read $24.55). The tip was because he didn't miss any of the turns I told him to take.

This alone speaks volumes.

Vernie Kuglin (whose home was raided by the IRS the preceding Monday),

What was that about? I had not heard about that.

I was surprised when the prosecutor did not vilify Sherry in his seven-minute opening statement.

He just let Sherry vilify herself.

She particularly described one man who she also knew from church and mentioned having had lunch with him on a couple of occasions. I don't recall whether she mentioned their names during direct or during cross the following day, but that testimony proved fatal to her case because the prosecutor brought in several of them as rebuttal witnesses and acted as though they hardly knew Sherry and all denied having even discussed the subject with her.

Bingo!

Three are currently employed by the IRS and one is retired, so they have their careers and pensions on the line should they go against the IRS with their testimony. Most anyone who knows Sherry believes her and it's no stretch to presume that the rebuttal witnesses lied. Sherry is a high profile opponent and has to be silenced, at whatever cost.

Always some conspiracy if you lose, huh?

The prosecutor's closing statement was damaging, tremendously so.

Pretty straightforward, just say Sherry lied to you.

[Disilloosianed]

I noted visible changes in their expression and their attention level once rebuttal witnesses began denying the conversations and associations Sherry had related.

Imagine that...the jury becomes less sympathetic for the defendant when she gets caught blatantly lying. Who'd have thunk it?

[Demosthenes]

Has anyone seen any discussion or description of how or why Sherry left the IRS?

[Nikki]

Tom Cryer, courtesy of Hansen's Family Guardian:

Dear T-Troopers and Patriots,

I am sick at heart for Sherry and all who are there and across the country working and praying for her, but it is my unhappy task to report that the jury, without taking time to have given her a fair deliberation, has returned four guilty verdicts for willful failure to file.

The jury was out less than an hour when it came back in with the verdict.

I was only able to speak briefly with Gary Thomason who is on the scene and supposed to be reporting developments for us, but he is not accepting calls and I have been unable to reach Sherry, Larry or Jeff all evening. I can understand their heartbreak and unwillingness to talk about it right now, although it is frustrating to sit here in the dark worrying about them and imagining what Sherry and her team are going through right now.

To provide what I was able to learn from Larry and to squeeze out of Gary earlier on, the government put on an extremely abbreviated case in chief, which put Sherry on the stand Monday afternoon. By all accounts the government’s case was lackluster and disorderly and Larry eroded what they did present with effective cross-examination.

Sherry made an impressive and credible presentation of her story and how and why she came to believe that she was not required to pay taxes on her gross receipts and that the income tax is an excise tax that does not apply to her. But as her testimony progressed the judge, who had sat fairly quietly allowing both attorneys to present their cases, began to tighten the reins on Larry’s examination. She would not allow Sherry to discuss particular cases or holdings, permitting her only to discuss general groups of cases and their general import. This restriction of Sherry’s testimony may well be Sherry’s only ray of hope for a reversal.

On cross examination the government seemed to suddenly become aggressive and angrily attacked her account on numerous points. At one point the AUSA actually misrepresented Section 1 as specifying Sherry as liable for the tax.

Although the government does not usually present any case in rebuttal in these cases it made an exception (or, perhaps, unveiled a new tactic) in Sherry’s case, parading a string of vitriolic witnesses who bludgeoned Sherry’s character, painting her as a thief and a liar. Although the evidence was thin and based on personal characterizations, jealousies and, likely, desire to destroy a “traitor to the brotherhood” more than any fact, when someone is blooded when they can’t fight back the blood may run off, but the stain remains. One witness purportedly accused Sherry of lying about a meeting because he “did not recall” the meeting she described. Hardly proof that the meeting did not occur, but damaging nonetheless. This parade of nay-sayers and half-truthers was the last impression the jury received before going into its deliberations.

A note of explanation: In criminal trials the government gets the first word and the last word in arguments. It also gets the first chance and last chance to present evidence (Government’s case in chief, followed by defendant’s case in chief, followed by government rebuttal—but no chance for defendant to rebut).

I apologize for the lack of detail in this report but I only had a brief discussion with Larry just after the case went to the jury and an even more brief conversation with Gary after the verdict was returned. Since that time I haven’t been able to catch anyone in Larry’s room and Gary is refusing to answer his phone.

I also apologize for our failure to post reports on the web site as promised, but Anson still has not surfaced and, frankly, I’m beginning to get worried about him.

The best I can do is recount to you what little I was able to glean from the two very short telecons with Larry and Gary this afternoon.

Please pray for strength and serenity for Sherry and her family as well as all those who witnessed this tragic event.

Tom Cryer,
TA HQ

[LPC]

Has anyone seen any discussion or description of how or why Sherry left the IRS?

No, and I was also surprised to see that, according to Jackson, she realized that there was no law making her liable for the income tax some years *after* she left the IRS.

So her story and Banister's story seem to be quite different.

[The Operative]

This is a sad day.

No, it is not.

I presume most people know by now that Sherry was convicted of all four counts of WFTF by a mind-numbed indoctrinated jury of the kind of people we walk among every day.

Of course, the reason couldn't be the defendant was actually guilty.

Let me begin by creating a mental vision of the setting. The trial was held in Judge Orenda D. Evans' Courtroom 1908, on the 19th Floor of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in Atlanta. The building is a vulgar, massive, cavernous 26-story monument to federal power. I couldn't help but compare it with the palaces Saddam Hussein built to flaunt his power.

The Federal Building in Atlanta covers a city block and hundreds, if not a thousand or more, people work there. Saddam Hussein built palaces that were two miles long and the only people who worked or lived there were him, his family, and his servants. How do those even compare to each other?

Underground parking is available for employees only, 20% of whom are uniformed security "officers," half of whom probably wouldn't qualify to load baggage at airports.

Sure, insult people who have honest jobs and follow the laws. Fred, are you certain YOU are qualified to load baggage at airports?

In my two-day experience there, I found only two entrances available to the public, both equipped with elaborate and intimidating screening/search/x-ray stations staffed by no fewer than six federal security personnel.

You can thank the terrorists that crashed planes into the WTC and the Pentagon for that.

so they could run my crutches through the X-ray compartment on a conveyer belt, and one of the nice gentlemen was kind enough to bring them back to me so I could advance to the entrance to a long, high-ceiling, otherwise useless, hallway to the elevators. The first place I found to sit down and catch my breath was on two very hard and very expensive benches, fashioned from some exotic wood, in the area outside Courtroom 1908 on the 19th floor, having arrived there after being sent to the 22nd floor to the court clerk's office to find out where Sherry's trial was to be held. There were no seats of any kind visible anywhere around the landing at the 22nd floor.

That hallway may seem useless to you, but at other times, it may be filled with people. As for seating, if you hadn't been on crutches and there were plenty of places to sit, you would probably complain about the government wasting money on chairs.

For the 9-mile journey from the hotel at North Druid Hills, I paid $25, which included a 45-cent tip (the meter read $24.55). The tip was because he didn't miss any of the turns I told him to take.

How generous of you.

When the prosecutor rested shortly before 4 PM, I think it surprised everyone on "our side."

I was little surprised too and I am NOT on "your side".

Most anyone who knows Sherry believes her and it's no stretch to presume that the rebuttal witnesses lied. Sherry is a high profile opponent and has to be silenced, at whatever cost.

Oh no, can't let a little fact that she broke the law be the reason she was convicted.

As we were leaving the building Monday afternoon, one supporter overheard the bailiff, who had sat through the trial between the jury and the witness box, in a discussion with a lady with whom he was walking to the parking lot. The lady asked him what kind of case he had in his court today, and his response was that he had another one of those tax evasion cases, and added that "if I have to pay taxes, by God those tax protestors have to pay it too."

I have more reason to believe the prosecution witnesses than I do a SPJ supporter.

[jkeeb]

I used to work in the office where Sherry worked at IRS. (Not at the same time.) The people there that knew her said she was an able agent and left for another job. I think it was in a CPA firm or something like that. After she turned up giving tax bullshit seminars, no one who knew her at IRS understood why.

[LPC]

Larry recalled Sherry as a rebuttal witness, but the prosecutor's objections and the judge's limitations pretty much prevented her from saying anything of any significance.

Based on my very limited courtroom experience, I expect that what has happening here was that Becraft was trying to introduce new testimony not directly related to the testimony of the rebuttal witnesses, which is a no-no.

If the rebuttal witnesses testified that they didn't remember having the conversations with Jackson that she had testified to, then Jackson's testimony would have to be limited to explaining why they don't remember, or offering some reason for the jury to believe that the conversations did take place. If Jackson tried to testify as to *other* reasons she didn't she had to pay income tax, reasons she didn't mention during her original testimony, the government would properly object, and the judge would properly sustain the objection.

Since he boiled down to he said/she said, there probably wasn't much of any significance that Jackson could say that she hadn't already said.

[Truthstalker]

Sherry Jackson to appear on Alex Jones' show momentarily (12:00 Central)

http://www.gcnlive.com/Schedule-Weekdays.htm

[wserra]

his response was that he had another one of those tax evasion cases, and added that "if I have to pay taxes, by God those tax protestors have to pay it too."

When I heard, back at the hotel, of that exchange it immediately occurred to me that most jury members would probably be thinking the same thing

A candle flickers in the darkness.

[Famspear]

from the Fred Marashall [sic] text above:

Sherry resumed her testimony on Tuesday morning, and things still looked great when Larry rested for the prosecution [sic]. But when the prosecutor called rebuttal witnesses, things went downhill very fast, as he was very effective in portraying Sherry as a liar whose testimony....all of it....was not to be believed. He made every effort to lead the jury to see her as a greedy woman whose main interest was making money and not paying taxes on it.

(bolding added).

Here, the "Marashall" (Marshall?) character -- who is, after all, very SYMPATHETIC to Sherry Peel Jackson -- shows how very badly the case went for Jackson -- with words that illustrate how powerful the prosecution's case must have been, and how the members of the jury must have viewed the defendant. If this Jackson supporter was able to see this clearly how ineffective the Jackson defense ultimately was, we can well imagine how strongly people who were not delusionally sympathetic to Jackson (i.e., the members of the jury) must have been impacted.

[Disilloosianed]

LPC's answer, of course, assumes that on rebuttal she tried to testify to anything relevant at all. With these folks that's not an automatic. She could just as easily gone into a jurisdictional rant or something similar.

[Dr. Caligari]

Sherry resumed her testimony on Tuesday morning, and things still looked great when Larry rested for the prosecution [sic]. But when the prosecutor called rebuttal witnesses, things went downhill very fast,

Note how he slips over Sherry's cross-examination, which appears to be what killed her.

[Red Cedar PM]

I presume most people know by now that Sherry was convicted of all four counts of WFTF by a mind-numbed indoctrinated jury of the kind of people we walk among every day.

Maybe those brainwashed sheeple don't really like it when they paid their fair share of the tax burden and someone else tries to weasel their way out of it in an extremely condescending and boastful manner.

[Nikki]

Rosie pipes in

Dear Subscriber,

Well, after an extremely short trial, and an extremely short jury deliberation (although I doubt they deliberated anything), Sherry Peel Jackson was found guilty of the crime which she didn't commit, and which the government knew she didn't commit. The charge was for several counts of misdemeanor "willful failure to file."

I don't have much more to say about it at the moment. Once again, the victims of oppression have betrayed someone who was trying to help them. Twelve more sheep demonstrated that, for the most part, the American people deserve to be enslaved, extorted, harassed and oppressed. Unfortunately, one of the few who DOESN'T deserve that is now being punished for telling the truth.

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
http://www.861.info

Sometimes, being smacked in the face by reality doesn't change anything at all.

[Famspear]

To say that Larken Rose (still at it after having served prison time) is a slow learner is an understatement.

But, we have to put things in perspective. By contrast, for example, to say that Irwin Schiff is a slow learner (serving still another long prison sentence after his third set of convictions) is - uh, I don't even know what word goes here. Some people never learn.

[webhick]

Some people never learn.

We marinate those people in canned roast beef hash for three days and then we put them out on the back porch like you can do to grapes to turn them into sun-dried raisins and then throw them into a tank of hungry sea monkeys and let them swim for their life.

As it turns out, it doesn't help them learn anything. But it's fun to watch. I love sea monkeys. Except when they beat me at poker. Bastards. They can bluff like nobody's business. Like that time thirty years ago when they swore that if I didn't bring back their pink fluffy bunny slippers that they'd write really provocative things about me all over the bathroom walls of America. Well, I dyed their slippers black and shaved them (those little bunnies bite hard so if you're going to try this at home, be sure to wear gloves) and left them on the monkeys' front stoop in the rain overnight.

I'm really popular now. Can't figure out why.

[BBFlatt]

Fred Lamented:

In my two-day experience there, I found only two entrances available to the public, both equipped with elaborate and intimidating screening/search/x-ray stations staffed by no fewer than six federal security personnel.

To which the Operative responded:

You can thank the terrorists that crashed planes into the WTC and the Pentagon for that.

I think Fred's thanks should go to his fellow anit-gov nutjob Tim McVeigh.

[Duke2Earl]

Rosie pipes in

Dear Subscriber,

Well, after an extremely short trial, and an extremely short jury deliberation (although I doubt they deliberated anything), Sherry Peel Jackson was found guilty of the crime which she didn't commit, and which the government knew she didn't commit. The charge was for several counts of misdemeanor "willful failure to file."

I don't have much more to say about it at the moment. Once again, the victims of oppression have betrayed someone who was trying to help them. Twelve more sheep demonstrated that, for the most part, the American people deserve to be enslaved, extorted, harassed and oppressed. Unfortunately, one of the few who DOESN'T deserve that is now being punished for telling the truth.

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
http://www.861.info

Sometimes, being smacked in the face by reality doesn't change anything at all.

Of course an alternate explanation is that those "12 Sheep" might just be smarter than Larken is. But then again the potted plant in my office is smarter than Larken so who knows.