United States v. L. Shyrl Brown

600 F.2d 248
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedJuly 18, 1979
Docket77-1761
StatusPublished
Cited by64 cases

This text of 600 F.2d 248 (United States v. L. Shyrl Brown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. L. Shyrl Brown, 600 F.2d 248 (10th Cir. 1979).

Opinion

WILLIAM E. DOYLE, Circuit Judge.

L. Shyrl Brown was found guilty by a jury on charges of willful failure to file his individual income tax returns for the years 1971, 1972 and 1973. What happened was that the appellant filed 1040 forms which contained no information at all from which federal income tax liability could be com *251 puted. In the blanks provided for dollar amounts, he inserted “unknown” or that the amounts were protected by the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination or other constitutional provisions. On occasion he inserted a small amount such as $22.50, which represented what he received in silver certificates or silver coin.

At the trial the evidence showed that he had adequate gross income in each of the three years in question so as. to require that he file a return. There was no shortage of evidence in support of any of the three charges.

The issue on which there is no longer any doubt is whether the described procedure fulfills the requirement for the filing of a return. Secondary contentions raised include the following:

That there was a denial of a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment or the Speedy Trial Act.

That the trial judge erred in denying appellant’s motion to suppress the evidence which had been obtained from third parties through IRS summonses.

That there was a denial of assistance of counsel, constituting deprivation of Sixth Amendment rights.

That it was error to refuse to instruct the jury on the defense of good faith.

That the trial court erred in refusing to grant the filing of a bill of particulars.

I.

The main contention is, of course, that the appellant’s attempted filing of the 1040’s during 1971, 1972 and 1973 failed to satisfy the filing requirement. He says that he cannot be convicted of not filing when he did file purported returns, which disclosed nothing, and that he was perfectly free to assert the Fifth Amendment privilege where answers would necessarily lead to criminal prosecution.

The government’s position is that the filing requirement of 26 U.S.C. § 7203 is based on the assumption that the forms will contain enough information from which the government can compute his liability; that the insertion of words such as “unknown,” “Fifth Amendment,” or “privacy” in the blanks is simply an avoidance effort.

The matter in issue is not new. The law is now established that failure to provide any information is tantamount to no return at all. 1

The return filed in this case is similar to other protest returns in which there has been previous testing. So when, as here, an accused is charged pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7203 with failure to file and it appears that his attempt was a pretext which was no more than a formality, it is tantamount to no filing at all.

The appellant further contends that he was protected in this because of his commitment to act in a way which was at odds with the income tax law, whereby any information he would submit would constitute self-incrimination. He says that he claimed the privilege and he is entitled to it. He relies on Garner v. United States, 424 U.S. 648, 96 S.Ct. 1178, 47 L.Ed.2d 370 (1976). Appellant misapprehends Garner. The Supreme Court in that case ruled that the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment was not violated for the reason that the defendant made incriminating statements in his tax returns and failed to assert the privilege. In that instance the defendant was a gambler and the evidence was used in a criminal prosecution for gambling, a nontax offense. The Supreme Court emphasized in that case that

*252 the claims of privilege we consider here are only those justified by a fear of self-incrimination other than under the tax laws.

Id. at 651 n.3, 96 S.Ct. at 1180 n.3 (emphasis added).

The court in Garner also said that it was not disturbing the determination that it gave in United States v. Sullivan, 274 U.S. 259, 47 S.Ct. 607, 71 L.Ed. 1037 (1927), wherein it held that the privilege against self-incrimination was not a defense to prosecution for failing to file a return. The Court stated that the privilege could be sought against specific disclosures if the form of return furnished answers which the defendant was privileged from making and which he could have raised in the return, but the Court emphasized that this could not justify the refusal to make any return at all. See Sullivan, supra, at 263, 47 S.Ct. 607. The conclusion to be drawn is that the Fifth Amendment does not protect one who has received illegal income from accounting for his income on a return. A conviction for failure to file was upheld in Sullivan, where gains from illicit liquor traffic had been realized and no return had been filed. Id. at 264-65, 47 S.Ct. 607.

A careful reading of Sullivan and Garner, therefore, is that the self-incrimination privilege can be employed to protect the taxpayer from revealing the information as to an illegal source of income, but does not protect him from disclosing the amount of his income. United States v. Sullivan, supra, 274 U.S. at 263.

The appellant here is not aided by Garner and Sullivan because he attempts to use the Fifth Amendment to avoid disclosing even the amount of his income and this is not protected by the Fifth Amendment. Instead it is a simple attempt to prevent the communication to the government of the amount of the tax. Necessarily it is an illegal effort to stretch the Fifth Amendment to include a taxpayer who wishes to avoid filing a return. 2

United States v. Irwin, supra at 201, holds that the claim of privilege is not allowed to accomplish avoiding the disclosure of information as to tax liability. After all, the entire theory of income tax is based upon individual disclosure, and the compelling of income tax filing is fully recognized as not violating the Fifth Amendment. 3

Neither the appellant’s claim that what he filed constituted a return nor his contention that he has a right to use the Fifth Amendment to bolster his position has merit.

II.

Appellant next contends that he was deprived of a speedy trial.

The facts as to this are that the information was filed June 2, 1976, the appellant was arrested June 3, 1976, and arraignment was first scheduled for July 1,1976. On the latter date the appellant appeared without counsel and stated that he wished to have counsel.

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600 F.2d 248, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-l-shyrl-brown-ca10-1979.