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Originally Posted by Shoonra
This order, filed on July 31st, rejecting Lawrence's application for his attorneys' fees, substantiates what I said about the Lawrence case. The judge points out that the case was dropped because of a belated discovery by the govt that the tax calculations were wrong, and not because of any Paperwork Reduction argument.
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I don't think the judge really needed to decide why the government dropped the prosecution, because the burden of proof was on Lawrence to show that the prosecution was improper, and Lawrence failed to produce any proof.
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Originally Posted by Shoonra
The only comment that the judge made about Lawrence's Paperwork Reduction argument is that it hasn't worked in previous cases and even Lawrence cannot find one decision that supports his arguments.
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The judge also described the PRA defense as "unlikely" and said that the claim that the government *knew* that it was going to lose on a defense that had *never* before succeeded was "ridiculous."
From the opinion:
"Even if a defendant like Lawrence is eventually successful at convincing a court that the PRA of 1995 provides individuals like Lawrence with a valid defense for failing to pay taxes, something that appears unlikely in light of the cases addressing the PRA of 1980 defense, Lawrence’s argument that the Government should have known that this was the law at the time that Lawrence was prosecuted is ridiculous."
