Court Opinion

ID: 9452986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:59:02.340311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:27.121681
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting on petition for rehearing:
The district judge made 93 pages of findings of fact. I find them well supported by the record. To prove them well supported by the record I would have to attach about a thousand pounds of record and exhibits. Short of that, this case must stand on the different views of the evidence of the majority and myself.
The shortages of income not reported by the defendant were mainly in connection with real estate he was hiding out, not on simple oversights of reporting.
The district court resolved everything in Lenske’s favor it could. He had the benefit of virtually all doubt. Still, that court found fraud beyond a reasonable doubt. And, so do I. As I have said before, and repeat, this case is so bad it ought to be affirmed per curiam.
The tragedy of the case is not that Lenske goes free. Internal Revenue can only catch and convict a few of those who cheat the public fisc. The tragedy is that someone might follow the case hereafter. I hope it can be treated as one of those “totality of circumstances” cases. A district court will not have another case exactly like this. Thus, it can find a- different totality of circumstances.
As one begins to read the majority opinion and sees early therein the excoriation of the special agent for “sneaking” the files of Lenske out to have them photostated, one knows how the case will come out. Of course, Lenske had given permission to the agents to look. Before the majority opinion was written, I had always thought that permission to see is permission to copy. Further illustrating the hostility which the government has been up against here is the comment that “The Special Agent testified rather petulantly * * I find the testimony not petulant.
As above, most of the majority opinion can be answered line for line, but such a course would only benefit the book publisher.
In time, other circuits will assign a rightful place to the majority opinion, and this court will recede from it.