False Confessions

Larken Rose

Does anyone still think the "Department of Justice" gives a damn about justice?

May 26, 2008 - Back in history, authoritarian regimes would accuse dissidents of crimes, and then torture them until they confessed.  It was a lot easier than trying to actually prove guilt using evidence and reason.  Plus, it was a fine way to punish trouble-makers who hadn't actually committed any crimes, but who were making things inconvenient for those in power.

Luckily, today we have a system of due process, rule by law, and a fair administration of justice.

Actually, we don't.  We still have a system that functions mainly by forced confessions.  Consider the fact that the vast majority of cases are settled by "plea bargains"  --  most of those now in prison never had their day in court.  Whether or not the guy actually did what he "confesses" to, a plea bargain is a coerced confession.  It is the control freaks saying, "We'll be nicer to you if you say you're guilty, but we'll make things really bad if you make us have to take you to trial, to actually try to PROVE your guilt."  And over 90% of the time, defendants accept the plea, and never go to trial.  Sometimes  --  and I know of a few cases personally  --  people choose to plead guilty to something they DIDN'T do, rather than facing the possibility of receiving a worse sentence if they go to trial.

In my own case, the IRS only tried once to get me to plea bargain.  I think it was pretty obvious that that wasn't going to happen (the phrase "when hell freezes over" came up).  But that was not the end of their attempts at getting a forced confession out of me.  After my conviction, at the sentencing hearing, the DOJ prosecutors were having tantrums because I hadn't yet recanted my legal conclusions regarding the income tax.  Anyone at the trial knows that the government produced absolutely NOTHING disputing my conclusions, and thus didn't give me the slightest hint of a reason to doubt those conclusions, and yet Shawn Noud (DOJ prosecutor) complained that I was not properly "rehabilitated," because I hadn't yet admitted that I was “wrong about any of the 861, [my] 861 position.”  To his credit, Judge Baylson answered by saying that he had never ordered me to say I was wrong, though he had "encouraged" me to file back returns, take down my web sites, etc.

Here are the judge's own words, from what he said right after the verdict in my case:  “If you will reconsider your position, and you will file the tax returns for the years you have not done so, and enter into an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service for payment of back taxes due, penalties and interest, I will take that very much in your favor at the time of sentencing.  If you refuse to do so, that will also be a factor at the time of sentencing.”  In other words, if I would file back returns, reporting my income as taxable (whether I believed it was or not), the punishment would be lighter.  I did.  And if I hadn't done so, the punishment would have been a lot worse, probably several YEARS worse.  So I signed returns, swearing that I thought I owed the tax, though I didn't.  In other words, those returns constituted coerced false confessions.

But it gets worse.  Mr. Noud then complained that, if I wasn't forced to say my legal conclusions were incorrect, I might later say that I “was forced to file tax returns.”  So not only did he want a forced confession; he wanted me to be forced to NOT SAY that it was a forced confession.  Of COURSE I was coerced into filing tax returns.  Anyone with a brain cell could see that.  But, like the inquisitors of the past, the DOJ thugs wanted me to confess to something that wasn't true, and then wanted to coerce me into saying that I WASN'T coerced.  (Incidentally, that is an essential element of all plea bargains, too:  the one being coerced to sign the plea has to sign a thing saying he wasn't coerced into it.)

Obviously some at the DOJ have the exact same mentality as the inquisitors during the Spanish Inquisition:  You should recant your beliefs, not because we provided any evidence of logic to counter your beliefs (which we can't do), but because we HURT you.  Think I'm exaggerating?  Try this on for size:

Floyd Miller, the lead prosecutor in my case and in Tessa's case, openly admitted that if Tessa would do a plea bargain, he didn't expect her to do any jail time, and wouldn't ASK for any.  But when she refused to do that  --  when she wouldn't plead guilty to something she hadn't done  --  Mr. Miller's response was, "This is war!"  So, based on the DOJ's own comments, my wife did NOT spend a month in prison for committing any alleged crime; she spent a month in prison for NOT FALSELY CONFESSING.

Does anyone still think the "Department of Justice" gives a damn about justice?  Again, in my case alone (and mine was only one among many, and not even the worst) the actual evidence demolishes all the rhetoric about "rule of law," "due process," and systems of "justice," and reveals the feds for what they are:  lawless, dishonest, power-happy thugs.  In fact, as I've said before, the number of ways in which the feds lied and cheated in my case alone could fill a book  --  and did.

If you want your own copy of the complete story, with all the evidence of government wrongdoing you could possibly want, you can order my new book online from the Kicking The Dragon web site, or by sending $22 to the address shown below.  (Orders will be filled in the order they were received, once the books come back from the printers, which should be in just a couple weeks.)

Larken Rose
P.O. Box 653
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006

(P.S. A couple people have suggested that a few of my recent messages were really thin-veiled attempts to get you to buy my new book, Kicking the Dragon (Confessions of a Tax Heretic).  I apologize if anyone thought there was a veil.  Just to make it perfectly clear:  I want you to buy my book.  Furthermore, I want my family to make some money off of it  --  maybe even enough to eventually break even from our ongoing extortion by the feds.  However, I also want people to think that anything they buy from me is well worth the price, and this book is no exception.)

STUMBLE IT!

More Good Stuff:

Articles by Larken Rose — Political philosophy of a man passionately interested in the freedom of his fellow man, moving intellectually from conservatism through libertarianism to anarchism.  Read the latest indictments against our tyrannical ruling elites.

How To Be A Successful Tyrant — Eradicate the self-determination and self-ownership of others and replace their free will with your will.  If you have an innate “love of dominion” and believe you can run other's lives better than they can, this book will show you how.

Kicking The Dragon — A chronicle of a modern-day witch-hunt.  The disturbing facts of the case pull back the façade of “due process” and the “rule of law” to reveal the United States government for what it has become:  a gang of lawless criminals interested only in preserving their own power.

ONLINE STORE — Interesting stuff you can download.  No need to sniff all over the web  -  the best stuff is right here.

Theft By Deception — This is a startling revelation for income tax professionals, income tax enforcers and administrators, and the average American who expects nothing less than truthfulness in taxation.

Would You Have Signed the Declaration of Independence? — Provide your causes that impel you to a repudiation of 'business as usual' and clearly state your demand that we reinstate and enforce government of law and liberty under the Constitution.