Cert. Denied

[LPC]

It's already been noted in another thread that Richard Hatch's petition for cert. was denied.

And I've posted citations to denials of cert. in a couple of other cases for which there were existing threads. But there are a couple of other cases worth noting:

William C. Stearman III is the self-styled "moron pro se" who told a Tax Court judge to "go butt a stump" and got sanctioned $25,000 by the Tax Court and $12,000 by the Fifth Circuit for his frivolous (and insulting) arguments. T.C. Memo 2005-39, aff'd 436 F.3d 533, No. 05-60521 (5th Cir. 1/13/2006). (The text of the 5th Circuit opinion can be found in a thread about Danny Riley.) This time, he was appealing a D.C. Circuit decision upholding liens and sanctions against him for frivolous arguments. No. 08-1034 (D.C. Cir. 2008); S. Ct. Dkt. No. 08-110.

I don't know Joey K. Lansing, but maybe I should. He was convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government for preparing tax returns reporting no tax liability, based on the theory that paying taxes is voluntary. According to Tax Notes, Lansing argued on appeal that the government was not defrauded because it was his clients who were defrauded. United States v. Joey K. Lansing, No. 06-16564 (11th Cir. 2008); S. Ct. Dkt. No. 08-14.

[.]

"moron pro se"

$25K and $12K are my kind of sanctions, that is, don't just get their attention, make it hurt. However, I would have given him a $5 reduction for the accurate and non-frivolous statement.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Monetary sanctions don't appear to be working as intended especially with pro se litigants.

I don't know about most of you guys, but most of the folks I know couldn't come up with a five-figure penalty, let alone a sanction on top of it. What's a five-figure sanction in the grand scheme of things?

A deterrent to other miscreants? Apparently not. I think we're seeing little more than a strategy to go down costing the "system" as much as possible along the way.

[.]

A deterrent to other miscreants? Apparently not

Except that how many have been deterred isn't possible to know.

Certainly the average pro se nut-ball with no assets isn't going to be deterred by anything short of imprisonment (perhaps not even by that) and will spout and file gibberish no matter what.

But, people with some remaining scrap of rationality (and some assets) are by definition at least somewhat more likely to restrain themselves when the extra damage due to sanctions is likely to be very stiff.

[Burzmali]

That assumes that word of the sanctions reaches would be offenders. Unless all the potential tax scofflaws read this board, I don't see how they are going to get that message. It isn't like the newspapers or TV run stories on the 25k in sanctions some nutbar who worries about gold-trimmed flags receives.

Part of the nature of the Internet is that people can insulate themselves from the news they don't want to hear. For an example of the mind-numbing insanity that the net can foster google "otakukin" sometime.

[.]

I don't see how they are going to get that message

You forget that they are all assiduous and indefatigable "researchers" of the "truth," during which meticulous process some, that is those with a few remaining functioning synapses will discover it. Quatloos is not the be-all and end-all of all possible pertinent tax information.

[Burzmali]

I fear you far over estimate the number of these people doing "research" and not just taking the word of some guy on some forum.