Opinion ID: 463769
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Law as Unsettled or Complex

Text: 40 At the close of the government's case, it moved in limine to exclude the testimony of a defense witness who was proferred to testify that the area of tax law governing the treatment of corporation distributions to shareholders was unsettled and complex. The trial court granted the motion, holding that defendant could not present this evidence unless he could establish that he was confused or had relied on the expert's advice. The defense acknowledged that it could not make this showing. Curtis now complains that the trial court's ruling unjustifiably deprived him of a defense on the issue of the willfulness of his conduct. 41 Defendant also objects to the trial court's refusal to give his proposed instruction number 13-B. This instruction tells the jury that it may consider the unresolved nature of the tax law in determining whether defendant willfully evaded taxation. The instruction also states that if the jury finds the law to be unsettled or complex, then defendant lacked the requisite intent to violate the law, regardless of whether or not defendant knew of the legal uncertainty. 3 42 Curtis' objections to the trial court's granting of the motion in limine and to its refusal to give proposed instruction 13-B are based primarily on United States v. Garber, 607 F.2d 92 (5th Cir.1979). The defendant in Garber received over $200,000 for allowing medical suppliers to extract rare antibodies from her blood. Mrs. Garber failed to report the payments she received for her blood components, and she was convicted for willfully attempting to evade federal income tax for 1970, 1971, and 1972. 43 At the time Mrs. Garber was prosecuted, no court or agency had ever decided whether payments for blood donations are income that is subject to taxation. Mrs. Garber argued in the trial court that she could not have willfully evaded the tax because the law was unsettled. She offered to call an expert witness to testify that the tax treatment of the blood sale proceeds was a novel and uncertain question. The trial judge refused to allow this testimony, describing the issue of taxability and legal uncertainty as matters of law for the judge. Based on the extensive evidence taken on Mrs. Garber's state of mind, other than evidence concerning the status of the tax law, the jury convicted her. 44 The Fifth Circuit reversed Mrs. Garber's conviction, finding that the trial court mistakenly reserved to itself the job of unriddling the tax law. 607 F.2d at 97. The court held that a jury deciding whether a defendant acted willfully may consider the uncertain state of the law, as revealed by expert testimony, as evidence of the defendant's state of mind. Moreover, the court declared that the relevance of a dispute in the law does not depend on whether the defendant actually knew of the conflict. Id. at 98. It reasoned that even if defendant had consulted the law, she would not and could not have discovered how to comply with it. Id. The court concluded with the observation that [a] criminal proceeding pursuant to section 7201 is an inappropriate vehicle for pioneering interpretations of tax law. Id. at 100. 4 45 After carefully reviewing Garber and other cases, this court declines to follow and rejects Garber for several important reasons. First, Garber allows juries to find that uncertainty in the law negates willfulness even when the defendant is unaware of that uncertainty. This contradicts the prior cases on willfulness, which consistently require factual evidence of the defendants' state of mind to negate willfulness under any theory. United States v. Ingredient Technology Corp., 698 F.2d 88, 97 (2d Cir.1983), cert. denied, 462 U.S. 1131, 103 S.Ct. 3111, 77 L.Ed.2d 1366 (1983); Note, Criminal Liability for Willful Evasion of an Uncertain Tax, 81 Colum.L.Rev. 1348, 1357 (1981). Willfulness is personal. It relates to the defendant's state of mind. It does not exist in the abstract. Unless there is a connection between the external facts and the defendant's state of mind, the evidence of the external facts is not relevant. 46 Second, the Garber approach distorts the role of expert witnesses and the purpose of their testimony. Expert testimony is intended to assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue ... Fed.R.Evid. 702. See also Garber, supra, at 106 (Ainsworth, J., dissenting). Experts are supposed to interpret and analyze factual evidence. They do not testify about the law because the judge's special legal knowledge is presumed to be sufficient, and it is the judge's duty to inform the jury about the law that is relevant to their deliberations. See Marx & Co. v. Diners' Club, 550 F.2d 505, 509-10 (2d Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 861, 98 S.Ct. 188, 54 L.Ed.2d 134 (1977); Note, supra, at 1362. The Garber approach also creates problems for the jurors listening to expert testimony. Jurors might be confused by opposing opinions of law offered by different experts. See United States v. Ingredient Technology Corp., 698 F.2d at 97. Garber would also force jurors to take their instructions on the law from expert witnesses as well as from the trial judge. Any differences in the legal rules given by the expert and the judge would be another potential source of confusion. 47 Finally, and perhaps most significantly, Garber requires the jury to assume part of the judge's responsibility to rule on questions of law. Garber asks the jury to read and interpret statutes to determine whether or not the governing law is uncertain or debatable. This function has traditionally belonged to the judge, as: 48 The jury is not composed of lawyers; the typical juror is untrained in legal affairs. To attempt to explain the myriad rules of judicial construction, the complexity of legal principles, or the function of precedent would hopelessly divert the jury from their preeminent duty of assessing appellant's guilt. 49 Garber, supra, 607 F.2d at 105 (Ainsworth J., dissenting). See also United States v. Mallas, 762 F.2d 361, 364 n. 4 (4th Cir.1985). 50 The trial court in the present case properly granted the government's motion in limine and properly refused to give defendant's proposed instruction 13-B. For each of the reasons set out earlier in this case, evidence of the unsettled or complex nature of the law is irrelevant, and instructions to the jury on this subject are not proper. 51 Defendant's conviction is affirmed.