This is just more proof that Jefferson was right when he wrote:
“They (the judiciary) are then in fact the corps of sappers & miners, steadily working to undermine the independant rights of the States, & to consolidate all power in the hands of that government in which they have so important a freehold estate.” The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes. Federal Edition. Collected and Edited by Paul Leicester Ford. 1821. Jan. 6.
Friday, July 17, 1992 – Page updated at 12:00 AM
Judge Tanner Sends Attorney To Jail For Contempt
By Peter Lewis
In a highly unusual proceeding, a federal judge late yesterday found a California defense attorney in criminal contempt and ordered him held by federal marshals in the middle of a criminal tax trial.
William Cohan’s clients are free on bond while a jury deliberates their fate.
But Cohan himself was fined $500 and ordered held for 24 hours after U.S. District Judge Jack Tanner found him in contempt for making “outrageous” remarks to jurors in his opening statement earlier this week in Seattle.
Tanner, who has a reputation for unpredictable and capricious behavior among the federal bar in Western Washington, accused Cohan of deliberately making misleading statements to the jury and attempting to obstruct justice.
Tanner seemed particularly perturbed by Cohan’s statements to the effect that all federal judges, including Tanner, were subject to manipulation by the Internal Revenue Service and were part of a government conspiracy against taxpayers.
Tanner cautioned Cohan at the time he made the remark, but the Encinitas, Calif., attorney went on to make similar assertions shortly afterward, according to a transcript Tanner made Cohan read in open court during the contempt hearing.
Tanner gave Cohan 25 minutes’ notice of the hearing, which occurred after the case went to jurors. Tanner later rejected a plea by Seattle defense attorney Dan Smith, who arrived late to represent Cohan, to stay the punishment pending an appeal to a federal appeals court.
Tanner accused Cohan of making the outrageous statements even though, Tanner contended, Cohan knew he could produce no credible evidence to sustain the allegations.
In his defense, Cohan pleaded that while he himself didn’t believe the allegations, he believed his client, a former Seattle police officer, believed them. At the time Cohan made the statements to jurors, he planned on having his client, Keith Engstrom, testify, Cohan said.
Later, after Tanner made rulings excluding certain evidence, Cohan and Engstrom decided that it wouldn’t be in his best interest to testify.
For example, Cohan said, Tanner had ruled that Engstrom would not be able to refer to a book titled “The IRS and the Black Robe Cover Up.”
But Tanner said he believed it was Cohan’s idea, not his client’s, to make the conspiracy allegations.
“There’s no question that your conduct was completely outrageous and no question that you are guilty (of criminal contempt),” Tanner told Cohan.
He then asked Cohan if he had anything to say before sentencing on the spot.
Cohan responded he “did not intend to engage in contemptuous conduct,” and only meant “to defend my client vigorously within the bounds of the law.”
Tanner could have sentenced Cohan to up to six months in jail.
Cohan’s clients, Engstrom and his wife, Sheryl Engstrom, a nurse at Providence Medical Center, are being retried on federal charges of failing to file tax returns and filing false claims, said Janet Freeman, a federal prosecutor based in Washington, D.C., in the tax division.
The couple was convicted in 1989, but the convictions were overturned on a technicality, Freeman said. Tanner, who normally sits in Tacoma, is hearing the case in Seattle.
Tanner noted in open court that Cohan had been found in contempt once before, but Cohan responded that the finding – by a state court in Colorado about 10 years ago – was overturned on appeal.
Tanner, who moved to semi-retired status early last year, was rated “worst judge in the West” by an American Lawyer magazine survey several years ago.
A more recent lawyers’ evaluation in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary said the reputation was “well deserved and well earned. . . Lawyers said Tanner is unpredictable, capricious and difficult to try a case before.”
After court yesterday, Smith said “on-the-spot” criminal contempt hearings, such as the one Tanner conducted yesterday, are usually reserved for ongoing disruptive behavior.
What Tanner did yesterday was unprecedented in his experience, Smith said.
Prosecutor Freeman said she, too, had never before witnessed what took place in Tanner’s court yesterday.
After spending last night in jail, Cohan was to be held in detention in the U.S. marshal’s office today until 5 p.m., when he was to be released, according to Tanner’s order.