Court Opinion

ID: 9445472
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:30:03.284832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:16.944698
License: Public Domain

DUFFY, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
As a member of the panel of this Court which first heard this case, I filed a dissenting opinion. I reaffirm the statements made therein, but see no necessity for repeating that opinion here.
The Government levied a jeopardy assessment on October 26, 1951. This assessment was for a sum of $100,000 greater than the claimed assets. The notice of deficiencies was dated December 11, 1951. The civil action in the Tax Court was commenced March 7, 1952. Defendant was not indicted until April, 1953. Defendant insisted the civil case be tried first. It had been pending more than a year before the indictment herein was returned. The Government successfully resisted all efforts to bring the civil action to trial. Such a trial would have clearly demonstrated whether accounting services were necessary for the defendant in the criminal case. The result of such a trial would have abated the jeopardy assessment.
Here the Government, by its deliberate act, by a jeopardy assessment, captured the defendant’s assets and thus denied him the use of his own funds to defend himself; the tools of defense were taken from him; the Government pauperized him by placing him in a financial straight-jacket.
Due process of law requires that convictions cannot be brought about by methods that offend a sense of justice. Rochin v. People of State of California, 342 U.S. 165, 173, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183. As applied to a criminal trial, denial of due process is the failure to observe that fundamental fairness essential to the very concept of justice. Lisenba v. People of State of California, 314 U.S. 219, 236, 62 S.Ct. 280, 86 L.Ed. 166. The tactics of the Government in this case in preventing defendant from utilizing the necessary tools of defense certainly offends my sense of justice. There were no elements of fairness present in the Government’s tactics.
The tactics of the Government in this case also were a violation of defendant’s rights under the Sixth Amendment which provides that a defendant is entitled to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. The denial of effective assistance of counsel also violates due process. Powell v. State of Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 58, 53 S.Ct. 55, 77 L.Ed. 158. This right to the effective assistance of counsel entitled the defendant to a reasonable opportunity to defend. In re Oliver, 333 U.S. 257, 275, 68 S.Ct. 499, 92 L.Ed. 682.
The conduct of the Government in this case violates those canons of decency and fairness to which any defendant in a criminal case is entitled under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitu-*112tlon of the United States. It is my judgment that the trial court was justified under the peculiar circumstances of this case, in dismissing the indictment before trial.