Court Opinion

ID: 9461002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:03:50.905793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:51.152352
License: Public Domain

FIELD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I am in wholehearted agreement with the views expressed by Judge Widener in his able and well reasoned dissenting opinion. Despite the disclaimer of the majority, it occurs to me that its approach to this case would, in effect, “reduce the withholding system ‘to a shambles’.” Today it is a Quaker with firm convictions about the Vietnam conflict who disregards the tax laws of the Nation to dramatize his position. Tomorrow it may be one who elects to follow such a course for any one of a variety of ideological or political beliefs. As stated by Judge Aldisert in United States v. Malinowski, 472 F.2d 850, 857 (3 Cir. 1973), which the majority is at some pains to distinguish or, in the alternative, declines to follow, Snider “wants the best of both worlds; to disobey, yet to be absolved of punishment for disobedience.” Unfortunately, the majority grants him just such a Utopian choice.
With respect to the reversal of the contempt charges, I can add little to the observations of Judge Widener except to say that this is merely one more regrettable step which undercuts the authority of the already beleaguered district judges who are charged with the orderly administration of justice in the trial arena and, unlike us, do not live in the sterile and sometimes unrealistic environment of the appellate ivory tower.
I would grant rehearing and rectify this unfortunate decision.