Ryan C. Patterson v. United States

Whether, under the Constitution of the United States, as amended, and applicable Federal rules and controlling case law, the United States, relying on an indirect method of proof, namely, the bank deposits method of analysis, can establish at trial an element of the crime charged (26 U.S.C. 7201)—specifically, that there is an additional tax due and owing—solely by the testimony as to the conclusions of such analysis by the agent who purports to have conducted it, where, if conducted, such analysis was admittedly not preserved such that it could be disclosed to the defendant for review prior to trial, as required by Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, or admitted into evidence, thus depriving the defendant of the opportunity to meaningfully challenge, by crossexamination or otherwise, the alleged determinations of agent as to the taxability or not of the deposits involved, which determinations necessarily form the basis of the agent’s conclusions.