- 10 - Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and requested an evidentiary hearing. After vacating the decisions, the Court denied the motion for evidentiary hearing, entered decisions for the Thompsons in accordance with their final settlement, and reentered or allowed to stand its decisions in the other test cases. The Court thereafter denied motions by test case and nontest case petitioners to intervene in the Thompsons’ cases shortly before the new decisions in those cases became final. In DuFresne v. Commissioner, 26 F.3d 105 (9th Cir. 1994) (hereafter DuFresne), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the decisions against the other test case petitioners on the ground that the misconduct of Sims and McWade required further inquiry. The Court of Appeals directed this Court to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine: “whether the extent of misconduct rises to the level of a structural defect voiding the judgment as fundamentally unfair, or whether, despite the government’s misconduct, the judgment can be upheld as harmless error.” Id. at 108. This Court conducted the evidentiary hearing directed by the Court of Appeals and held that the misconduct of the Government attorneys did not create a structural defect but rather resulted in harmless error. See Dixon v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1999- 101 (Dixon III). We imposed sanctions against respondent in the form of relief from the accrual of interest on additions to taxPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011