The Logic of Legal Discourse

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Famspear
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Post by Famspear »

Well, actually, this forum is not particularly painful for me, especially compared to a certain other place on the internet where I operate and where I do something more expansive also related to tax protesters (the other place will remain nameless at least for now). What I see my colleagues doing here, and and I am doing here, is teaching the protesters rather than trying to persuade. Attempts to persuade are more difficult than merely pontificating about the law.

In the other forum, I do not try to persuade the protesters themselves (that would be usually futile, and I guess painful and tiring after a while) -- but persuasion skills are important for a different reason in the other forum. I really don't want to be more specific right now.

To the tax protester, I say: Si tu n'es pas un avocat, evites une disputation avec un avocat au sujet de la loi. -- Famspear
silversopp

Post by silversopp »

Quixote wrote:
Sometimes a bad law should be violated, and the jury system provides a legal way for that to be accomplished (boy does that sound strange)
No, it provides an illegal, albeit reasonably safe, way to violate bad laws. It also provides an illegal, albeit reasonably safe, way to violate good laws.
Has any juror ever been convicted for nullifying a law?

What law would he be breaking anyways?
Disilloosianed

Post by Disilloosianed »

suddenly reminded of "A Beautiful Mind"
Dr. Caligari
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Post by Dr. Caligari »

Steve Sy wrote:the people cannot give those who represent them more power than any one of them personally have. It's illogical to claim you can authorize someone to act on your behalf with more power than you have.
Then you have eliminated the possibility of any government at all. Government, by definition, has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Governments can imprison criminals and go to war; private individuals cannot.
Dr. Caligari
(Du musst Caligari werden!)
Disilloosianed

Post by Disilloosianed »

Silversopp, this should get you started. While there is no real way to convict jurors, it is a violation of the oath they take to uphold the law:

People v. Estrada, 46 Cal.Rptr.3d 111
Cal.App.3.Dist.,2006
In criminal prosecution, the trial court properly attempted to prevent an occurrence of juror nullification by informing prospective jurors at the outset that jurors have no authority to disregard the law, and by obtaining their assurance that they would not do so if chosen to serve on the jury; such a directive to the jury did not amount to an unwarranted intrusion into the province of the jury, as guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. U.S.C.A. Const.Amends. 6, 14; Standard of Judicial Administration, § 8.5(b)(21).




We review a district court's refusal to give a requested jury instruction for abuse of discretion. United States v. Roberts, 308 F.3d 1147, 1153 (11th Cir.2002). “A trial judge's refusal to give a requested instruction will warrant a new trial only if (1) the requested instruction was substantively correct, (2) the court's charge to the jury did not cover the gist of the instruction, and (3) the failure to give the instruction substantially impaired the defendant's ability to present an effective defense.” Id.

**3
Justice Holmes recognized long ago, “the jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both law and facts.” Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U.S. 135, 137-40, 41 S.Ct. 53, 54, 65 L.Ed. 185 (1920), abrogation on other grounds recognized in United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995). We “acknowledge the jury's de facto power to refuse to apply the law as instructed by the court, exercise of such power is in dereliction of the jury's sworn duty.” United States v. Funches, 135 F.3d 1405, 1408 (11th Cir.1998). We have held that a criminal defendant is not entitled to a jury instruction which alerts the jury of this de facto power. United States v. Trujillo, 714 F.2d 102, 105 (11th Cir.1983). Furthermore, we have held “that defense counsel may not argue jury nullification during closing argument.” Id. at 106. According to our prior-precedent rule, “[o]nly the Supreme Court or this Court sitting en banc can judicially override a prior panel decision.” United States v. Wright, 392 F.3d 1269, 1280 (11th Cir.2004) (internal quotations and citations omitted), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 968, 125 S.Ct. 1751, 161 L.Ed.2d 615 (2005).

We conclude that the district court's decision on jury nullification was not an abuse of discretion because our precedent has held that a criminal defendant is not entitled to either an instruction or an argument for jury nullification. Accordingly, we affirm Hall's conviction and sentence.


U.S. v. Hall 188 Fed.Appx. 922, *925, 2006 WL 1913133,**2 (C.A.11 (Fla. - 3 (C.A.11 (Fla. (C.A.11 (Fla.),2006)





A juror's ability to acquit “in the teeth of both law and facts,” Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U.S. 135, 138, 41 S.Ct. 53, 65 L.Ed. 185 (1920), is a well-established power that defense counsel correctly observed “ha[s] been with us since Common Law England.” Merced, 114 Cal.Rptr.2d at 784; see also Bushell's Case, 124 Eng. Rep. 1006 (C.P.1670) (releasing jury foreman Bushell, who was arrested for voting to acquit William Penn of unlawful assembly against the weight of the evidence and the requirements of the law). Importantly, while jurors have the power to nullify a verdict, they have no right to do so. See Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 22-23, 100 S.Ct. 1999, 64 L.Ed.2d 689 (1980) (citations omitted). If jurors had a right to nullify, then a court would have a correlative duty to safeguard their ability to exercise this right. See Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, 23 Yale L.J. 16, 32 (1913) (describing a legal taxonomy in which a duty is the correlate of a right). But courts manifestly do not have a duty to ensure a jury's free exercise of this power. See, e.g., United States v. Powell, 955 F.2d 1206, 1213 (9th Cir.1992) (holding that courts have no duty to provide nullification instructions to juries); United States v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1113, 1136-37 (D.C.Cir.1972) (same). In fact, “it is the duty of juries in criminal cases to take the law from the court, and apply that law to the facts as they find them to be from the evidence.” Sparf v. United States, 156 U.S. 51, 102, 15 S.Ct. 273, 39 L.Ed. 343 (1895).

[5] The power to nullify is reenforced by a jury's freedom from recrimination or sanction for exercising this power after the verdict has been reached. See United States v. Thomas, 116 F.3d 606, 615 (2d Cir.1997) ( “n addition to the courts' duty to safeguard the secrecy of the jury deliberation room ... the several rules protecting the unassailability of jury verdicts of acquittal ... serve to ‘permit [ ] juries to acquit out of compassion or compromise or because of their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity.’ ”) (quoting Standefer, 447 U.S. at 22, 100 S.Ct. 1999). Notwithstanding the unassailability of jury verdicts of acquittal,

nasmuch as no juror has a right to engage in nullification-and, on the contrary, it is a violation of a juror's sworn *1080
duty to follow the law as instructed by the court-trial courts have the duty to forestall or prevent such conduct, whether by firm instruction or admonition or, where it does not interfere with guaranteed rights or the need to protect the secrecy of jury deliberations, ... by dismissal of an offending juror from the venire or the jury.

Merced v. McGrath 426 F.3d 1076, *1079 -1080 (C.A.9 (Cal.),2005)
natty

Post by natty »

John J. Bulten wrote: (God or Ideal Law, which gives authority to the People, is the only self-authenticating authority.) ............

(4) Is there no ideal law, no ultimately noncontradictory principles to which one can appeal (for one's conscience's sake) when those principles are denied by American courts? Is there no right and wrong? If there isn't, why do you prefer lawfulness to unlawfulness? If there is, why doesn't it control your conscience like your oath to American case law does? You apparently avoid discussion of right and wrong, while valuing court "success" as if it's the right thing to learn.
Who said God or Ideal Law gave authority to the People? That is just a theory. There are greater numbers of people on this planet who believe God or Ideal Law operates through mediators like a King.

The Constitution (the supreme law of the land) certainly does not claim any dependence on God or Ideal Law. It specifically calls for the Supreme Court to be the arbiter of disputes under the Constitution. The People control govt via voting and amendment.

What you believe to be "contradictory" seems to be anything that you don't agree with. You speak as an anarchist and not as a member of the social contract.
natty

Post by natty »

Dr. Caligari wrote:
Steve Sy wrote:the people cannot give those who represent them more power than any one of them personally have. It's illogical to claim you can authorize someone to act on your behalf with more power than you have.
Then you have eliminated the possibility of any government at all. Government, by definition, has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Governments can imprison criminals and go to war; private individuals cannot.
Individuals have the power to do anything Congress or any other govt has the power to do. An individual can lay taxes, make laws, fight his enemies, etc, but good luck having the STRENGTH to enforce his rules.

stevie toys with the idea of anarchy, but rarely knows what he is talking about.
Quixote
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Post by Quixote »

silversopp wrote:
Quixote wrote:
Sometimes a bad law should be violated, and the jury system provides a legal way for that to be accomplished (boy does that sound strange)
No, it provides an illegal, albeit reasonably safe, way to violate bad laws. It also provides an illegal, albeit reasonably safe, way to violate good laws.
Has any juror ever been convicted for nullifying a law?

What law would he be breaking anyways?
1) I said it was a reasonably safe crime to commit.

2) That could differ from state to state. It would also depend on when the juror decided to ignore the law. In Texas, if he knew going in that he might ignore the law, he perjured himself when he took the jury oath.
"Here is a fundamental question to ask yourself- what is the goal of the income tax scam? I think it is a means to extract wealth from the masses and give it to a parasite class." Skankbeat
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wserra
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Post by wserra »

CaptainKickback wrote:the worst offenders view and invoke the name of God as if God were their personal flunkie and errand boy.
Well, Hendrickson has Bulten, so Bulten naturally feels that he needs something.
"A wise man proportions belief to the evidence."
- David Hume
SteveSy

Post by SteveSy »

Dr. Caligari wrote:
Steve Sy wrote:the people cannot give those who represent them more power than any one of them personally have. It's illogical to claim you can authorize someone to act on your behalf with more power than you have.
Then you have eliminated the possibility of any government at all. Government, by definition, has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Governments can imprison criminals and go to war; private individuals cannot.

Yes they can or you can. Force is acceptable to enforce fundamental morality between a group which you are part of. You have a personal right to defend yourself either from a common foe who may be infringing on your personal rights or from a common thief. You do not have a personal right even as a group to legalize theft in certain instances to help those you think are in need. I cannot authorize someone to rob my neighbor, because I think he makes too much for his own good, to help out the indigent. I can authorize someone to take from me personally whatever I see fit to help out the same. I can along with others form a group that authorizes how trade will take place between the group. I cannot regulate trade between other parties not affiliated with me personally or my group. I can deny the right for someone to transact with me or can authorize someone else to act on my behalf in this respect. Government has a purpose but a very limited one. One that has powers not exceeding what I can personally give. As a group the power is greater not because its greater than any one individual but because we act in concert. Just like team of scientists is generally more resourceful than any one scientist working alone.
Disilloosianed

Post by Disilloosianed »

How can you, Stevesys, with no help from a governmental entity, legally declare war on another country....let's say Iran.
silversopp

Post by silversopp »

Quixote wrote:
silversopp wrote: Has any juror ever been convicted for nullifying a law?

What law would he be breaking anyways?
1) I said it was a reasonably safe crime to commit.

2) That could differ from state to state. It would also depend on when the juror decided to ignore the law. In Texas, if he knew going in that he might ignore the law, he perjured himself when he took the jury oath.
I understand that its reasonably safe because it is probably near impossible to prove the juror's intent when he chose his verdict. But has any juror ever been convicted or perjury for that?

I've understood jury nullification to essentially be a power of the jury, but one that they are not, nor have to be, told that they have. Juries have the power to acquit white men simply for being part of the "good-ole-boys". Juries can convict a man simply because "he looked guilty" because he blinked too often during testimony. I'm willing to bet that most jurors just vote along with the majority so that they can get back to work/home quicker instead of dragging the case out longer.

In a nutshell, I don't get why we have juries in the first place, except to screw things up (let 9 guilty men free to avoid falsely convicting the 1 innocment man sort of thing)
John J. Bulten

Post by John J. Bulten »

Famspear wrote:Dear SteveSy and Mr. Bulten:

I'll respond to both of your most recent posts here. First, Steve, it's good to see that you might be reading Sir Edward Coke. And Bulten, gee, I'm sorry you thought I was "waving" Black's Law Dictionary (Secondary Authority) around like I somehow thought it was case law (Primary Authority). We aren't allowed to use Secondary Authority in this thread? Oops, that would mean the non-judicial writings of Coke and Holmes would be off limits too.

Look, let's cut through all your latest futile attempts at formulating your own system of jurisprudence. I'm sorry, but the gross amount you receive in exchange for personal services you perform is, under the law, taxable to you -- and there's nothin' I can do about it, fellas. Nothin' you can do about it either. Except write your congressman and try to get the law changed. Yours, Famspear
I'm sorry that you wish to abandon the topic of the "logic" of an illogical system. Clearly you desire no primary authority beyond a set of contradictory books and papers. Please let me (or God) know if you ever wish to consider other potential sources of primary authority.

If you think "the gross amount you [John] receive in exchange for personal services you perform is, under the law, taxable to you", I'm sorry, but I have no case law on that subject. Nor would I be so foolish as to make that the primary controversy in Bulten v US. But I'd be happy to join that issue on a more appropriate thread.
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grixit
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Post by grixit »

Famspear wrote: My sense, based on a completely unscientific, non-systematic gathering of data, is that many if not most tax protesters cannot or will not get their brains wrapped around this basic stuff. Tax protestation is delusion. People who are deluded are stuck head first in a very tight rabbit hole, and have a difficult time emotionally wiggling and backing themselves out of the rabbit hole.
Silly old tp's.
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grixit
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Post by grixit »

CaptainKickback wrote:I loath when people start invoking the name of God to justify their beliefs and system of government, such as when John Bulten wrote, "God or Ideal Law, which gives authority to the People, is the only self-authenticating authority."

When people start invoking the name of God like that, it means all of their other arguments have failed, so they are playing the God card, or they are gutless, spineless loads who will not take responsibility for their action/situation and so resort to pleading to "daddy" aka God, to magically fix things for them. Lazy, very lazy.
Agreed. I myself like to compare it to a boxer on the ropes suddenly producing a derringer.
Three cheers for the Lesser Evil!

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natty

Post by natty »

John J. Bulten wrote: I'm sorry that you wish to abandon the topic of the "logic" of an illogical system. Clearly you desire no primary authority beyond a set of contradictory books and papers. Please let me (or God) know if you ever wish to consider other potential sources of primary authority.
How is the system "illogical"? Just because you disagree with a ruling does not make it contradictory or illogical. Why would you as an individual be the judge or "primary authority"?

Even those who call on God as their primary authority can only give their opinion of what God demands unless they claim they have the authority to speak for God.

The founders were Deists. This country was built upon the Protestant fundamentals and the separation of Church and State. That is, no man spoke for God and law was morality neutral (amoral).
Famspear
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Post by Famspear »

Dear Mr. Bulten:

Regarding Primary Authority, I don't consider it a question of what I personally desire. I didn't create the legal system. Primary Authority and Secondary Authority, and how they are applied, were defined long before I was born. I'm just a lowly citizen studying the system. And, even to the extent that American law is self-contradictory, etc., I am comfortable with that. If you had been what I have been through (an American law school), you would probably be comfortable with studying the system, with all its faults, etc. Also, that doesn't mean I agree with every law, or with every aspect of how the system works (I guess almost no one is).

Regarding your statement: "Please let me (or God) know if you ever wish to consider other potential sources of primary authority" - don't hold your breath waiting for me or any other lawyer in this forum to consider, as Primary Authority, anything other than what our legal system already treats as Primary Authority. Again, I don't make the rules.

Regarding your other comments, there are citations to plenty of examples of case law -- right here in Quatloos -- to the effect that the gross amount you receive in exchange for personal services you perform is, under the law, taxable to you. (My understanding is that you may not agree with that.)

Gotta go for now. Later - regards, Famspear.
Famspear
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Post by Famspear »

Footnote: As you will note, above I said that if you had been through what I've been through, you would PROBABLY be comfortable, etc. There are always the Tommy Cryers, the Larry Becrafts, etc., of the world. On the CPA side of things, there are always the Sherry Peel Jacksons and (former CPA, I think) Joe Banisters of the world.

How do we explain the fact that there are always a few educated people who should know better, and who nevertheless espouse tax protester arguments?

This just might be part of the impetus for a future thread (or maybe it's already been addressed somewhere in Quatloos, I don't know). Stay tuned. Yours, Famspear
SteveSy

Post by SteveSy »

Disilloosianed wrote:How can you, Stevesys, with no help from a governmental entity, legally declare war on another country....let's say Iran.
I think your question hinges on what "legally" means in your own mind. I think many, if not all of you have an image of government as seperate and apart from the people, a body of leaders or controllers of the populace. The federal govenment is just a servant to the people as group it is not the master.
Demosthenes
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Post by Demosthenes »

How do we explain the fact that there are always a few educated people who should know better, and who nevertheless espouse tax protester arguments?
Because they're narcissists and bucking the system (and having special knowledge that the sheeple aren't privy to) makes them feel important.

They consider themselves whistleblowers and heroes. Just read their essays and speeches.

For a fantastic book on this topic, read "Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power" by C. Fred Alford. While it does not literally address TPs, many of the characterists in CPA and attorney TPs are identical to what you see in real whistleblowers.