Court Opinion

ID: 9450166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:37:32.567331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:10.939734
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting ;
I dissent. I see no place in this case for the pedagogical dispute over inference versus presumption. Nor for this particular crime can I see how the Government meets its burden of showing a willful failure to pay unless it first proves, directly or circumstantially, that the defendant knew that some tax was payable. No doubt the evidence supports the inference that the defendants were engaged in the numbers racket and Were aware that it was against Florida law. But none of the indicia elaborated on by the Court’s opinion, such as furtiveness, size of the operation, concealment of the tell-tales of the activity, or the like, even begin to show that this indicated an awareness that a federal tax was due.
Congress can, of course, prescribe that the failure to pay the tax is a crime and thus eliminate the element of a knowing duty to pay. But so long as Spies v. United States, 1943, 317 U.S. 492, 63 S.Ct. 364, 87 L.Ed. 418; Hargrove v. United States, 5 Cir., 1933, 67 F.2d 820, 90 A.L.R. 1276, and Wardlaw v. United States, 5 Cir., 1953, 203 F.2d 884, stand, I do not think we may read out knowl*369edge by a so-called presumption, rebuttable or otherwise, that an accused knows the law and knowing the law knows he had a duty to pay.
If the result I urge is bad, Congress can correct it. And I am not at all sure the prospect is as formidable as Judge Rives earlier made out in his initial dissent. I would be the first to join in a reversal and remand, Bryan v. United States, 1950, 338 U.S. 552, 70 S.Ct. 317, 94 L.Ed. 335, so that the Government could have the opportunity of meeting its burden through circumstantial evidence that must be abundant from which the jury could infer in fact (not be told as a matter of law) that these defendants knew that they were skating on thin ice, both federal and Florida.
Rehearings denied; JONES, BROWN and BELL, Circuit Judges, dissenting.