Mackey v. United States

411 F.2d 504
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJune 4, 1969
DocketNo. 17200
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 411 F.2d 504 (Mackey v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mackey v. United States, 411 F.2d 504 (7th Cir. 1969).

Opinion

HOFFMAN, District Judge.

The question presented for decision is whether a conviction for income tax evasion should be set aside on collateral attack because the trial court admitted into evidence the defendant’s federal gambling tax returns which, the Supreme Court has subsequently held, the defendant could not have been required to file over a timely claim of the privilege against self-incrimination. We conclude that the question must be answered in the negative, and affirm.

Defendant was convicted on March 24, 1964, of five charges of income tax evasion committed by means of false and fraudulent returns for the calendar years 1956 throdgh 1960, in violation of Section 7201, Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U.S.C. Sec. 7201. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of five years imprison-[506]*506merit, and a fine of $10,000, on each count. Upon a prior appeal, this Court affirmed the conviction, 345 F.2d 499 (1965), and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari, 382 U.S. 824, 86 S.Ct. 54, 15 L.Ed.2d 69.

The prosecution proceeded upon a net worth theory, predicated upon a showing that defendant’s total assets had increased during the period in question by an amount which could not be accounted for by his reported income. In such a prosecution, “[pjroof of a likely source, from which the jury could reasonably find that the net worth increase sprang,” is an essential element of the case. Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 138, 75 S.Ct. 127, 99 L.Ed. 150 (1954). As stated upon the prior appeal, “Government’s theory was that the source of defendant’s excessive net worth increases was a policy wheel operation which defendant admitted conducting and that the excess of $4000 per week * * * was from profits earned by defendant on this operation.” 345 F.2d, at 501. This theory was borne out by the proof. “Defendant concedes that he was a policy wheel operator during the years in question. There was no direct evidence that any of defendant’s alleged unreported income was obtained from his policy wheel operation. Direct evidence is not required.” 345 F.2d, at 506-507.

One type of proof establishing this likely source of unreported income was a series of sixty monthly federal gambling excise tax returns filed by defendant during the years in question. These returns, on Form 730, were required to accompany the payment of the ten per cent excise tax on wagering receipts imposed by Section 4401 of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. See. 4401; Treas.Reg. Sec. 44.4011(a)-l(a). At the trial, defendant objected to the introduction of these returns on the ground that they were cumulative, since their contents were disclosed by Schedule C to the income tax returns already in evidence, and were prejudicial and inflammatory. The District Court overruled this objection, and this Court affirmed, without specific discussion, finding “no prejudicial error.” 345 F.2d, at 507. In neither court did the defendant claim that the return infringed his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. With the denial of certiorari, the judgment became final and defendant began serving his sentence in December, 1965.

On January 29,1968, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decisions in Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39, 88 S.Ct. 697, 19 L.Ed.2d 889, and Grosso v. United States, 390 U.S. 62, 88 S.Ct. 709, 19 L.Ed.2d 906, holding that the federal wagering tax laws violated the privilege against self-incrimination, and that a claim of that privilege bars a prosecution for failure to register, report, or pay the taxes imposed by those laws. Immediately thereafter, defendant filed his motion under Section 2255 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. See. 2255, to set aside the judgment of conviction on the authority of these decisions. Defendant has appealed to this Court from the District Court’s denial of this motion.

I.

At the threshold, we are met by the Government’s argument that proceedings under Section 2255 are not a substitute for a direct appeal, and are not ordinarily available to set aside a final conviction on the ground that evidence was erroneously introduced and admitted. That argument, supported by a number of decisions in other Circuits, has been put to rest by the Supreme Court’s decision in Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (March 24, 1969). Sustaining a motion under Section 2255 based on the admission of evidence produced by unlawful search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the Court concluded broadly that, in enacting the Section, “Congress has determined that the full protection of their constitutional rights requires the availability of a mechanism for collateral attack.” 394 U.S., at 228, 89 S.Ct., at 1075. Since defendant’s claim is premised-Qn.the^Constitution, his remedy is not foreclosed.

[507]*507Defendant’s motion under Section 2255 rests wholly upon his claim that the reception into evidence of the Form 730 wagering excise tax returns infringed his privilege against self-incrimination conferred by the Fifth Amendment. He did not, however, decline to file the returns, nor did he, when filing them, raise any protest upon that ground. No claim of the privilege was made at the trial, to support his objection to the admissibility of the exhibits, and no question of self-incrimination was presented to this Court in the course of the prior appeal. These failures to invoke the privilege do not work a waiver, in defendant’s view, since his silence resulted from reliance upon the Supreme Court’s decisions in United States v. Kahriger, 345 U.S. 22, 73 S.Ct. 510, 97 L.Ed. 754 (1953), and Lewis v. United States, 348 U.S. 419, 75 S.Ct. 415, 99 L.Ed. 475 (1955), holding that the wagering taxes did not violate the privilege against self-incrimination. Until these decisions were overruled, after his conviction had become final, by the subsequent decisions in Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39, 88 S.Ct. 697 (1968), and Grosso v. United States, 390 U.S. 62, 88 S.Ct. 709 (1968), the defendant reasons, he had no support for a claim of privilege, and his failure to make the claim must be excused.

As the District Court demonstrates in its closely reasoned opinion, a careful reading of the authorities casts doubt on this attempted justification. The prior decisions in Kahriger and Lewis involved a different tax from the tax here involved : they held only that the wagering occupation tax (26 U.S.C. Sec. 4411), as distinguished from the excise tax here in issue (26 U.S.C. Sec. 4401), did not violate the privilege against self-inerimination, in part upon the rationale that the occupation tax, to be paid annually in advance, did not involve any possible incrimination for past crimes. See United States v. Kahriger, 345 U.S. 22, 32-33, 73 S.Ct. 510 (1953).

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Fred T. MacKey v. United States
411 F.2d 504 (Seventh Circuit, 1969)

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411 F.2d 504, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mackey-v-united-states-ca7-1969.