Time: Sun Apr 20 06:56:43 1997
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Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 06:51:52 -0700
To: fwolist@sportsmen.net
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: IRC is "Void for Vagueness"

[This text is formatted in Courier 11, non-proportional spacing.]


                Excerpts from "The Federal Zone:"
             "Cracking the Code of Internal Revenue"

                     re: Void for Vagueness

                      Paul Andrew Mitchell
                       All Rights Reserved
                      Common Law Copyright


     The historical  record documents  undeniable proof  that the
confusion, ambiguity and jurisdictional deceptions now built into
the IRC  were deliberate.   This  historical record  provides the
"smoking gun"  that proves  the real  intent was  deception.  The
first Internal  Revenue Code was Title 35 of the Revised Statutes
of June  22, 1874.   On  December 5, 1898, Mr. Justice Cox of the
Supreme Court  of the  District of  Columbia delivered an address
before the  Columbia Historical  Society.   In this  address,  he
discussed the history of the District of Columbia as follows:

          In  June  1866,  an  act  was  passed  authorizing  the
     President to appoint three commissioners to revise and bring
     together all  the statutes ....  [T]he act does not seem, in
     terms, to  allude to  the District  of Columbia,  or even to
     embrace it  ....  Without having any express authority to do
     so, they made a separate revision and collection of the acts
     of Congress relating to the District, besides the collection
     of general  statutes relating  to the  whole United  States.
     Each collection was reported to Congress, to be approved and
     enacted into  law ....   [T]he  whole is enacted into law as
     the body  of the statute law of the United States, under the
     title of Revised Statutes as of 22 June 1874. ...

          [T]he general  collection might  perhaps be considered,
     in a  limited sense  as a  code for the United States, as it
     embraced all  the laws  affecting the  whole  United  States
     within  the   constitutional  legislative   jurisdiction  of
     Congress, but there could be no complete code for the entire
     United States, because the subjects which would be proper to
     be regulated  by a  code in  the States are entirely outside
     the legislative authority of Congress.

                  [District of Columbia Code, Historical Section]
                                                 [emphasis added]

     More than half a century later, the deliberate confusion and
ambiguity were  problems  that  not  only  persisted;  they  were
getting worse by the minute. In the year 1944, during Roosevelt's
administration, Senator  Barkley made  a speech from the floor of
the U.S. Senate in which he complained:

     Congress is  to blame  for these complexities to the extent,
     and only to the extent, to which it has accepted the advice,
     the  recommendations,  and  the  language  of  the  Treasury
     Department, through its so-called experts who have sat in on
     the passage  of every  tax measure  since  I  can  remember.
     Every member of the House Ways and Means Committee and every
     member of the Senate Finance Committee knows that every time
     we have  undertaken to  write a  new tax bill in the last 10
     years we  have started  out with  the  universal  desire  to
     simplify the  tax laws and the forms through which taxes are
     collected.   We have attempted to adopt policies which would
     simplify them.   When we have agreed upon a policy,  we have
     submitted that  policy to  the Treasury  Department to write
     the appropriate  language to  carry out  that policy;    and
     frequently the Treasury Department, through its experts, has
     brought back  language so complicated and circumambient that
     neither Solomon  nor all  the wise  men of  the  East  could
     understand it or interpret it.

               [Congressional Record, 78th Congress, 2nd Session]
               [Vol. 90, Part 2, February 23, 1944, pages 1964-5]
                                                 [emphasis added]

     You have,  no doubt,  heard that  ignorance of the law is no
excuse for  violating the  law.   This  principle  is  explicitly
stated in  the case  law which defines the legal force and effect
of administrative  regulations.   But, ambiguity and deception in
the law  are an  excuse, and  the ambiguity in the IRC is a major
cause of our ignorance.  Moreover, this principle applies as well
to ambiguity  and deception in the case law.  Lack of specificity
leads to  uncertainty, which  leads in  turn to  court  decisions
which are  also void for vagueness.  The 6th Amendment guarantees
our right  to ignore  vague and  ambiguous laws, and this must be
extended to  vague and  ambiguous case  law.   In light  of their
enormous influence  in laying  the  foundations  for  territorial
heterogeneity and  a legislative  democracy for the federal zone,
The Insular  Cases have  been justly  criticized, by  peers,  for
lacking the minimum judicial precision required in such cases:


          The Absence  of  Judicial  Precision.  --  Whether  the
     decisions in  the Insular  Cases are  considered correct  or
     incorrect, it  seems generally  admitted that  the  opinions
     rendered  are  deficient  in  clearness  and  in  precision,
     elements  most   essential  in  cases  of  such  importance.
     Elaborate discussions  and irreconcilable  differences  upon
     general principles,  and upon  fascinating  and  fundamental
     problems suggested  by  equally  indiscriminating  dicta  in
     other cases,  complicate, where they do not hide, the points
     at issue.   It  is extremely  difficult to determine exactly
     what has been decided;  the position of the court in similar
     cases arising in the future, or still pending, is entirely a
     matter of conjecture.  ...

          It is  still more  to be  regretted that the defects in
     the decision  under discussion  are by no means exceptional.
     From our  system of  allowing judges to express opinion upon
     general principles  and of following judicial precedent, two
     evils almost  inevitably result:   our books are overcrowded
     with dicta,  while dictum  is frequently taken for decision.
     Since  the  questions  involved  are  both  fundamental  and
     political, in  constitutional cases  more than in any others
     the  temptation  to digress,  necessarily strong,  is seldom
     resisted;   at the  same time it is strikingly difficult, in
     these  cases,   to  distinguish   between  decision,   ratio
     decidendi, and  dictum.   Yet because the questions involved
     are both extensive and political, and because the evils of a
     dictum or of an ill-considered decision are of corresponding
     importance,   a    precise   analysis,   with   a   thorough
     consideration  of   the  questions   raised,  and  of  those
     questions only,  is imperative.   The  continued absence  of
     judicial precision may possibly become a matter of political
     importance;   for opinions  such as those rendered cannot be
     allowed a permanent place in our system of government.
                                                                 
                                      [15 Harvard Law Review 220]
                                                      [anonymous]


                             #  #  #


========================================================================
Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S.    : Counselor at Law, federal witness
email:       [address in tool bar]   : Eudora Pro 3.0.1 on Intel 586 CPU
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ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech,  at its best
             Tucson, Arizona state   : state zone,  not the federal zone
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========================================================================


      


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