United States v. George v. H. Kleifgen

Appellant George V. H. Kleifgen, who is no stranger to this court, was in this case convicted of four counts of wilful attempt to evade and defeat income tax due for the four-year period commencing January 1, 1969, and ending December 31, 1972, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201 . To obtain a reversal of this conviction he relies on five contentions. These are that (1) the trial court erred in refusing to dismiss the indictment because the grand jury was unlawfully empaneled; (2) the unauthorized interview by the prosecution of his former counsel violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights; (3) he was entitled to a judgment of acquittal; (4) exclusion of evidence indicative of a decline in his net worth was error; and (5) the jury instruction concerning certain embezzlement losses was prejudicial. We will address these contentions in order; when necessary our discussion of each will be supplemented by the relevant facts.

I.

Challenge to the Grand Jury.

Understanding of the appellant’s first contention begins with the Jury Selection Act of 1968, 28 U.S.C. § 1861 et seq. (Act), which declares that “[i]t is the policy of the United States that all litigants in Federal courts…