United States v. John Noehl Schmitz

REVIEW AND TENTATIVE FINDINGS OF FACT

Schmitz is an income tax objector. He shows devout dedication and seems not to be a mean fellow. But he has been convicted of income tax irregularities.

His defiance of the federal income tax laws has landed him in the Federal Correctional Facility at Lompoc, California. There, obviously his behavior is accepted as benign and he seems to have few restrictions imposed on him.

He plants his feet on this ground: The only thing one can get now for working for an employer is a federal reserve note or a check for which one can get only federal reserve notes. This, he says, is only printing press money, i. e., phoney money. If he could get old fashioned paper silver certificates or older gold certificates for his labor, he would be satisfied and pay his income taxes.

His fixation has led him to file income tax exemption certificates with his employer which asserted he would have no taxable income. And he declined to file year-end personal returns, as I understand it. And, he has for some time been earning wages which almost everyone else would consider taxable income.

At his trial a deputy public defender was appointed under the Criminal Justice…