Sherry Jackson on Coast to Coast with George Noory

George Noory interviews former IRS agent Sherry Jackson, who made a remarkable discovery after leaving the IRS. [Listen] [MP3] 27:27

See also:
America: Freedom to Fascism (video)
Meet Sherry Jackson (video)
She Fought for Law (video)
The Attorney Who Took on the IRS (audio)

Trial Update, Day 1 - October 29, 2007
Jury selection was completed after the fortunate candidates were vetted by a standard battery of questions designed to identify those most likely to have an informed opinion about this kind of case. IRS employees and their family members, anyone who had ever had an income tax problem, and radical members of any organization that supports the United States Constitution were not going to be allowed on this jury. The ideal juror was one who had never really thought about this subject much, and wasn't likely to either.

Opening statements were uneventful, except that defense attorney Larry Becraft was able to make his 20- to 25-minute opening remarks without objection, leading one observer to remark that he thought this trial was being guided by the hand of God.

That opinion was further bolstered by the prosecution's surprisingly brief presentation and the bland testimony of their three witnesses, none of which was damning and part of which was already admitted by the defense. Remember, the prosecution has to prove all three of the following elements in a "willful failure to file" case.

This is from the manual of the Tax Division of the Department of Justice, which is the instruction manual for US attorneys who actually prosecute tax law violations.

To establish the offense of failure to make (file) a return, the government must prove three essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
1. Defendant was a person required to file a return;
2. Defendant failed to file at the time required by law; and,
3. The failure to file was willful.

The prosecution never tries to prove the first element, and they did not try to do so today. The prosecution rarely tries to prove the third element, and they did not try to do so today. Instead, the prosecution focuses on the first half of the second element, which is what they did today, and this is what the defense had already admitted willingly. But the second half of the second element, "at the time required by law," is never proved, and they did not try to do so today.

So out of the three required elements, the prosecution tried to prove half of one element, the part that Sherry Jackson herself has gladly admitted. The prosecution doesn't even try to prove guilt. And if one day they ever do try to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in a "willful failure to file" case, the prosecutor has one more impossible hurdle in his way, that being the definition of willfulness. Here's how the US Supreme Court defined it in Cheek v. United States, 498 US 192 (1991):

Willfulness has been defined by the courts as a voluntary, intentional violation of a known legal duty . . . . Willfulness is determined by a subjective standard, thus the defendant is not required to have been objectively reasonable in his misunderstanding of his legal duties or belief that he was in compliance with the law.

In other words, by law the defendant can be as wrong as a one-legged stool, as confused as a three-headed cat, and as innocent as a newborn baby.

This explains why Judge Orenda D. Evans' court is noncombative in this case. The government doesn't have a leg to stand on, and they know it.

The defense will continue tomorrow.

Trial Update, Day 2 - October 30, 2007
The case went to the jury at 4:15. By 5:07 the news was bad. The jury found Sherry Jackson guilty of four counts of willful failure to file. Not one juror understood what they were deciding. Not one. Like the jurors in the trial of Larken and Tessa Rose, they incorrectly thought they had to decide whether Sherry had filed tax returns. More details to follow.

Trial Summary - October 30, 2007
(The following was excerpted from an account provided by Fred Marshall, one of the experienced courtwatchers in attendance.)

This is a sad day. I presume most people know by now that Sherry was convicted of all four counts of willful failure to file by a mind-numbed indoctrinated jury of the kind of people we walk among every day. The trial was held in Judge Orenda D. Evans' Courtroom 1908, on the 19th floor of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in Atlanta, Georgia. The building is a vulgar, massive, cavernous 26-story monument to federal power.

By court time, quite a number of supporters had arrived. The highest count was at 3 p.m. when I counted 46. Among the supporters were Sherry's father, her husband Colin Jackson, Charlie Beale, Peymon, Vernie Kuglin (whose home was raided by the IRS the preceding Monday), Joe Banister, Gary Thomason (Truth Attack), and others who drove from South Florida, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Virginia, Louisiana, and elsewhere.

Sherry, Larry Becraft, and Jeff Dickstein seemed confident.

The jury was selected after the judge asked all 35 prospective jurors a sequence of general questions clearly designed to help the prosecution identify (and eliminate) anyone who worked for, had ever worked for, or knew anyone who had ever worked for the IRS, any government agency, any law enforcement agency, any lawyer or prosecutor, or any sheriff's office. She asked if anyone had ever had any unpleasant experience with any government agency, anyone who had been arrested, anyone who felt (s)he had been unfairly treated by any government or law enforcement agency. She asked if anyone, including immediate family members, had been arrested. She asked for a show of hands of those who had performed jury duty before. She asked if anyone belonged to, or had ever belonged to, any organization that opposes the income tax or believes the income tax is unconstitutional. She asked if anyone believed that the IRS ought not have the authority to enforce tax laws or audit the financial records of citizens. Finally, she asked if anyone had ever been involved with any litigation against any government agency.

Twelve jurors and one alternate were selected:

a white single female who works in advertising sales, age 32-35;
a white male who is an account specialist in a bio lab, married to a special ed teacher, age 38-40;
a white female who works in a medical office for an anesthesiologist, age 30-35;
a white male who is retired from BellSouth, married to a government accountant, age 65-plus;
a black female practical nurse who works in long-term health care, 35-ish;
a white male information technology manager, previously a programmer, age 45-50;
a white female, stay-at-home-mom who has worked some in consumer marketing, probably 35;
a white male who works in marketing for a county tax commissioner's office, age 60-65;
an Hispanic female who works for the American Cancer Society, age 35-ish;
a white male who is a technical writer for computer technology publications, age 40-42;
a black female who is retired from the Social Security Administration, age 55-60;
a black male who works on an assembly line in an airplane factory, previously a truck driver, age 33-35; and
a black female who works in supply-ordering for a county government, age 45-50.

The Assistant U.S. Attorney, who was the prosecutor, was a short, 50-ish man who seemed deceptively inept and ill-prepared throughout most of the first day. I never saw his name in writing and was never able to clearly discern his name when it was mentioned by the judge and Larry Becraft. He was accompanied at the prosecution table by the IRS case agent and a DOJ tax division representative, all men. They had boxes and boxes of records and manuals. I was surprised when the prosecutor did not vilify Sherry in his seven-minute opening statement.

Larry's opening statement took about 25 minutes, and he went into considerable detail regarding the testimony he expected from Sherry. I was surprised that neither the prosecutor objected nor the judge issued any caution. I thought Larry got away with a lot that I had not expected. Things looked pretty promising at that point.

The first witness the prosecutor called consisted of a black female who was hired by the IRS at the same time Sherry was hired and they went through initial training together. She told a little about their training and the prosecutor focused on the training concerning processing and examining tax returns and other forms, and who has to submit them. She admitted, however, that after the initial 6-8 weeks, she had not worked anywhere near Sherry. She also admitted that after that initial flurry of classes, IRS agents get very little training beyond about 40 hours a year of continuing education.

The second witness was a black lady, a CPA who had been involved with Sherry in a business corporation with three stockholders, all CPA's, who combined to handle a three-year accounting contract for the Georgia State Government. She testified as to how much money Sherry made.

The third witness was a male DOJ fraud investigator who testified as to how much income Sherry allegedly had over the four years covered in her charges. Larry's cross examination did not dispute any of the claims of income, at least not that I recall. The goal, apparently, was to show that Sherry simply did not believe that she was liable for any taxes and therefore was under no obligation to file.

When the prosecutor rested shortly before 4 p.m., I think it surprised everyone on our side.

Sherry took the stand at 4:10 after a short break and testified pretty much as Larry's opening statement had predicted. Hardly any objection was voiced, and Judge Evans gave Larry a wide berth. In the course of Sherry's testimony, she told of some of her research and her efforts to find someone to show her a law that made typical Americans liable for income taxes or imposed any duty to file returns. She testified that she had contacted some of her friends at the IRS and asked them to help her find the applicable provisions of law, but none had produced any results. She particularly described one man who she also knew from church and mentioned having had lunch with him on a couple of occasions. I don't recall whether she mentioned their names during direct or during cross the following day, but that testimony proved fatal to her case because the prosecutor brought in several of them as rebuttal witnesses and they acted as though they hardly knew Sherry and all denied having even discussed the subject with her. Three are currently employed by the IRS and one is retired, so they have their careers and pensions on the line should they go against the IRS with their testimony. Most anyone who knows Sherry believes her, and it's no stretch to presume that the rebuttal witnesses lied. Sherry is a high profile opponent and has to be silenced, at whatever cost.

As we were leaving the building Monday afternoon, one supporter overheard the bailiff, who had sat through the trial between the jury and the witness box, in a discussion with a lady with whom he was walking to the parking lot. The lady asked him what kind of case he had in his court today, and his response was that he had another one of those "tax evasion" cases, and added that "if I have to pay taxes, by God, those tax protestors have to pay it too."

Back at the hotel, when I heard of that exchange it immediately occurred to me that most jury members would probably be thinking the same thing, so I wrote a note about it for Larry and suggested that he include something in his closing statement to neutralize that understandable reaction among the jurors. "I realize that some of you may be thinking along those lines, but why not consider that if she hasn't been able to find any such law during her years of research, and therefore isn't liable for paying income taxes, that maybe you jury members might not ought to be paying them either?" Larry considered the suggestion but did not use it, probably because it would never have been allowed.

Sherry resumed her testimony on Tuesday morning, and things still looked great when Larry rested for the prosecution. But when the prosecutor called rebuttal witnesses, things went downhill very fast, as he was very effective in portraying Sherry as a liar whose testimony--all of it--was not to be believed. He made every effort to lead the jury to see her as a greedy woman whose main interest was making money and not paying taxes on it.

From my observation of the jury members, which is nothing more than pure speculation, I thought they were keeping an open mind all the way to the end of Sherry's testimony. I noted visible changes in their expression and their attention level once rebuttal witnesses began denying the conversations and associations Sherry had related.

Larry recalled Sherry as a rebuttal witness, but the prosecutor's objections and the judge's limitations pretty much prevented her from saying anything of any significance.

The prosecutor's closing statement was damaging, tremendously so. Larry's closing statement was mostly a rehash of his opening statement, and the whole case then hinged on whether or not the jury believed Sherry. They didn't. They returned a guilty verdict in less than 45 minutes. More than half a dozen IRS agents appeared from nowhere and assembled on the front row of the gallery to hear the verdict. They all seem pleased with the verdict. The jury probably just wanted to go home.

The judge thanked the jury, dismissed them, then set the court in recess. She did not mention a sentencing hearing, and she gave no instructions to Sherry or Larry. She just recessed the court and left.

See also: Trial Logs

Note: Unbelievable though it may seem to most people, a small minority of Americans still believe their government would never lie to them. Here are some Americans who have provided living proof that government lies without even blinking. The damage award for those lies: $100 million. [Story credit]