United States v. Irwin A. Schiff

GURFEIN, Circuit Judge:

This case raises an issue never before considered in a federal court of appeals: the question of the admissibility in evidence in a jury trial on a criminal information of the videotape of a “talk show” which includes the opinions of unsworn strangers on the very issues before the jury. Appellant Irwin A. Schiff, a self-proclaimed iconoclast in the field of federal income taxation, and a prolix writer and lecturer on the subject of money, appeals from his conviction for willful failure to file personal income tax returns for the years 1974 and 1975. On April 18,1978, a…