| LEGAL
DISCLAIMER I am not a Tax Lawyer, Nor do I play Dan Evans on the internet. I am not a Certified Public Accountant, Nor do I play Paul Thomas on the internet. I am not an Enrolled Agent, Nor do I play Richard Macdonald on the internet. DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR ANYTHING ON THIS PAGE. Go look it up for yourself. |
A speech by a juror in the Gaylon Harrell AcquittalGaylon Harrell's acquittal
happened in spite of a biased judge.
Hear what one of those juror's has to say. part3.ram 2mb 2 minutes through 9 minutes on this clip. Ah, first I wanna say and clarify that I am not the juror, [o]kay, there were twelve of us. Uh.. And twelve fine citizens who were very concerned about doing what was right. When we first entered the courtroom it seemed very easy. You know, Well, Okay, Did he file or didn't he file, that's not to difficult to decide you know. But it didn't take us long to realize that it wasn't gonna be so simple. And I said, I think I just need to be clarified, what is Mr. Harrell being tried for? And he read again... you know... the charge of willfully not filing income tax in Illinois. I said okay, thank you. The defense kept talking about, you know, where is this law, And the judge finally looked at us and said, "I will instruct the jury according to the law." And we went oh, okay, he's gonna give it to us, you know, maybe a nice little format, whatever. So, needless to say as soon as we got in deliberation what did we look for? The Law. And we're going through papers and going through papers and we're going, okaaay, so where is the law? And finally there was this one piece of paper and it said, "if you are filing jointly, and if you are married and filing jointly and under the age of sixty five, you are required to pay Illinois taxes if you make this much money. And somebody said, 'there it is, there's the law." I said I think that was the tax code, wasn't it? Isn't that what they said was the tax code? Well isn't that the law? I said no, didn't they talk about that? Well yeah we all came to agreement, no that.. that wasn't the law, that was the tax code. But they said, but if the judge said it, it must be the law. And we had one dear gentleman that was from Romania... Romania and he ah, he's an American Citizen now but he said, 'You know in my old country we couldn't challenge the law. But in this country we can." So that's when we wrote our first request. We wrote out, I wrote out the request and I said, would you please give us the number of the law... That has this wording and then I took the wording right off the paper that he had given us. We waited a few minutes. ya' know. an, ah, By the way the bailiff was fairly new and he was like going bonkers He's going "You wanna give a request to the judge ahhh Oh I dunno I've never seen that before." you know. And so, Uh, anyway, in a little bit we got back our answer. And we looked at it, and it said, "You have been given everything you need." ... ... ... ... Well, needless to say, we weren't pleased. We're going if its that easy why didn't he just write it down. And this is when things got heavy. Because we're starting to look at each other and people are going "You mean we don't have to pay taxes." And so then we got into well is it a moral issue and you know, I mean, government has to have money to do what it's doing and blah, blah, blah, and I know you'll have answers to that, but realize we were talking as dummies. okay. Uh. And so, you know, we're going... boy this could get out, you know. Pretty serious case. All of a sudden this little case that we had all just shown up for to do our civic duty had become an awesome case... With tremendous possibility, you know. And so, that's when the heated element kinda came in, 'cause people started getting emotional about taxes. And finally I said, Now wait a minute, this is not a moral judgement that we're making. We're judging Mr. Harrell on the law. Let's get back to what we're talking about. We're judging him according to the law. Have you seen the law yet? No. And so we sent a second request, you know. Please give us the papers that were submitted as exhibit number whatever for the defense. And we waited. And we got a note back and it said, "You have requested blah, blah, blah. You're being denied. At that point, the other three jurors.... swung. They said, "something's really wrong here." And so, some of 'em said, "Well, I just don't know." I mean, "He's going to be getting away with it." And I said wait a minute, if it's not the law, he's not getting away with anything, but standing for his rights. And they said, well you're right. You know.. But.. We're so deeply ingrained in this... you know, and please be patient when you talk with other people. This is something that we've been taught all our lives... is the citizen... is... you know, it's part of our being. And so, we had to crash through that and go, but what are we really talking about. We're talking about the law. And I read the instruction from the judge, which I don't have his exact wording but, basically it was, "if he's not guilty, then he's.... not guilty." And that's when we all voted and we signed the papers. Finally I will never forget, for one thing, the white face of the judge. But the other that I will never forget the mixed feelings of humility and pride as the clerk read, as the clerk read, We the jury, find the defendant Gaylon Harrell, not guilty. |