Woman jailed for refusing federal order to commit perjury
Case erupts over speech rights, due process and signature on tax forms
Published: 15 hours ago
Fundamental free speech rights and due process are at issue in the case.
In what observers and attorneys believe is unprecedented in American history, federal prosecutors sought to compel a person not only to speak, but to affirm under penalty of perjury the truthfulness of something the person did not believe to be true, all to advance the government’s desired narrative in court.
The Justice Department did not respond to repeated requests by phone and email for information from WND.
Husband Pete Hendrickson, however, told WND the government was trying to coerce his wife into committing perjury, using threats, in a manner that would financially benefit the government.
“Further, Doreen was ordered to conceal the fact that the false testimony was coerced,” he said. “She was ordered to render it in such a fashion that anyone seeing it would conclude that the testimony was entirely Doreen’s freely made of her own accord and representing what she really believes [to be] true.”
In what her husband called “ironic” and “chilling,” the indictment against his wife for refusing to say what the DOJ wanted her to say came at almost the same time as the Supreme Court ruled yet again that the First Amendment “prevents the government from telling people what they must say.”
In the summer of 2013, federal agents took her to a federal facility in downtown Detroit on an indictment of “contempt of court” for refusing to go along with the demand.
“I don’t want my kids to grow up in a world where they’re afraid to say what’s true, because the government wants them to say something different,” Doreen Hendrickson says in a video posted online. “That isn’t any way to live.”
The video, in which also is discussed the theories regarding income tax:
When she still refused to comply with the court order instructing her to sign the declaration without reservations noting the coercion, she was convicted of "contempt of court" and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
She could go back for more time if she does not comply with what the Hendricksons contend are illegal orders upon release late this year.
The first trial ended in a hung jury after Hendrickson was allowed to read Supreme Court rulings about speech rights. But in the second, she was prevented from doing so, and the government was successful in securing a conviction.
In the trials, the judge instructed the jury, "properly" according to the federal government's appellate brief, that the legality of ordering Hendrickson to sign something she did not believe to be true was not at issue.
Trust the government? Maybe you shouldn't. Read the details in "Lies the Government Told You," by Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Pete Hendrickson, outraged, blasted the "co-conspiring judge" and the controversial instructions given to the jury, which are an important element of the appeal.
"This is utterly offensive to the constitutional protections of speech and conscience, and of due process, which provides that anyone in a legal contest with another party – even when that other party is the United States [government] – is entitled to make their own claims, to argue their own facts, and is under no circumstances obliged to endorse the views of their opponent," he said.
"The assault on Doreen Hendrickson is an assault on every American," Pete Hendrickson told WND. "What's being done to this good woman undermines the very rule of law which is the only thing keeping us from arbitrary and despotic government.
"No one can be told what to say by the government," he continued, "and especially not what to say she believes true."
The First Amendment "says this in as plain a way as it can be said," Pete Hendrickson said, adding that "the amendment means what it says," as "has been endlessly stated by the U.S. Supreme Court and all other courts of every kind throughout the country and throughout our history."
"This is perhaps the most well-settled point in American legal history," he added, referring to speech rights.
In her statement before sentencing denouncing the "illegal" schemes of the government and the court, Doreen Hendrickson lashed out at the prosecutor for her "lies" and lambasted the "criminal" process used to secure her conviction.
"No one, not even the government, gets to preemptively evade the contest or control its outcome by taking, or being given, control of what its opponents say – even if it really thinks what is being said or might be said is wrong," she told the court. "Both sides must rely on the strength of their own arguments to overcome those of their opponent, and are prohibited from using strong-arm tactics against each other. In fact, efforts to secure favorable testimony in such a contest by threats or coercion are crimes."
Hendrickson also noted that she expected to prevail upon appeal and outlined the reasons why.
A book on the 'witch trial'
Observers who witnessed the trial also expressed outrage over what they saw and contend that Hendrickson was railroaded in a sham proceeding that was rigged from the start.
Brian Wright, a longtime liberty activist who attended the trial, was so moved by the "travesty" he observed in the trial that he decided to write a book, "The Motor City Witchcraft Trial(s)," outlining alleged abuses behind the case.
"I knew from day one – from the blatant, self-righteous hostility of the judge, from her constant badgering of Doreen, from the assignment of an incompetent legal aide to supposedly help Doreen with her case, from the manner of the prosecution's presentation of their 'case', from instructions to the jury, from the open collaboration of the judge with the prosecution, and later from obvious judicial tampering with the jury – that the fix was in," Wright told WND.
"This was not a court of law, but a tribunal of Soviet-style justice: guilty regardless of anything," he added.
He said the case was not a tax case but rather a case of whether government and the courts can compel a person to commit perjury and attest to something she or he believes is false, "such as whether she's a witch."
The abuses were so serious, Wright continued, that there should have been a grand jury investigation to "indict all these government officials for the crime of suborning perjury."
The order given to Hendrickson to "perjure" herself was clearly unlawful, Wright argued. However, he recalled the judge in the case demanding, including to the jury in the instructions, that the most crucial issue not be discussed.
"Clearly, justice requires that Doreen be released, her record expunged and that she receive restitution for the crime of false imprisonment," the author and activist said.
He also called for all officials involved in the "crime of suborning Doreen's perjury" to be indicted, convicted and imprisoned for their "heinous act of violence."
The reason? Tax book, critics say
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