Dennis Fisher
DENNIS FISHER #04:21:53 dennis fisher, I'm an asst. US attny, ND... ...I was covering the federal building in Chicago for the SunTimes between72 and 78. And in the spring of 74 I decided that I'd watched enough ofthe activity in court and that I should get a degree and go into law...22/21... and that's exactly what happened... ...22/41...there are a series of them and they're all lawyers, DAn WEbbwas one of them, he prosecuted John Poindexter... ...23/15...it was a warm day, extremely warm day, it was a sunday andit was a day before Valentine's day and I'd only been in ND for 13 or 14months. And I dind't expect something like this to happen. I saw the bulletinscome across the tv, I think I was watching sixty minutes. And it talkedabout some people being injured whill making an arrest in medina which isin the central part of the state. so I went to the phone and dialed up LynnCrooks, a person who was a US atty and a man with a lot more experienceand asked him had seen the same tv bulletin, he said he had not, so I filledhim in on what I knew...23/55 ...and I began to make some phone calls myself and things began to developthat night. He and Rodney webb had jobs to do and they went off to do those...24/08... ...FISH1 ...24/12...the next morning I came in pretty early and worked on a seriesof press releases for the US Attny, who at the time was Rodney Webb andwe began a series of briefings as well, he did the briefings and I was hisright arm, he was a fasicile public speaker but not at all schooled as tohow to deal with the media. So I kind of assited in that respect...24/38... 24/45...that's hard to recapture. mine was disbelief, I had never heardof GK before this time . I didn't know who the posse comitatus was, I didn'tknow the consequences might be in terms of the fallout in terms of victims,including indirect victims, even the prosecutor office and the reactionthey might have to it all...25/12... ...taht's hard to recapture, I was shocked... ...25/27...the next morning which was monday , a lot of things werehappening and Lynn Crooks came and asked if I'd help in the prosecutionof this case. And I'm kind of the junior member...25/38... ...in the outfit, I'd only been a lawyer for six years, I started lawschool later than some, I'd been a newpaper man for some time. ...25/48... ...but I thought I was up to the challenge and I appreciated the trustin my abilities and that's the initial involvment...25/56... ...but we went immediately to Jamestown, he and I and two FBI agentsand that's where the newscenter for a two pronged investigation, one theprocess for the trial and the other was to find GK because he was a fugitiveat that point...26/17... ...26/17...and Spencer Hellicksen one of the FBI agents and I becamethe search warrant team and we wrote a whole series of search warrants forthings that are still sealed in the court records...26/27... ...looking for GK , looking for evidence. It took several days of intensivebehind the scenes kind of work...26/38... ... ...26/48...well, I'd never been to Medina in my life. It's not a verylarge hamlet, if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. It'skind of, a couple of traffic signs on Hwy 94 going west. ...26/58... ...so, I had to see it first to understand what had occurred, we hadphotographs, but that didn't do justice to the whole thing, I saw TV aspectsof it, before I saw the whole thing myself...27/08... and the way I recall this the best, is the ramcharger which is the carthat Chesire was shot on the running board. at close range. The ramchargerwas sitting there. And I have in my own mind, the flashing light still goingon, just going on...27/30... ...and I can see Chesire asking Ken Muir, I can see this because ofthe radio tapes, asking him to come forward, to come down from the crestof this hill, because they're kind of a dip right at the reardon farm. AndMuir's car and Schanble's car driving forward trying to block the road.And to what a classic debacle the whole thing turned out to beFISH1..27/51... it just boggles the mind. I'm not a combat veteran, but people I'vetalked to, tell me that when you're in a fire fight the people that firefirst have the element of suprise, are usually the ones that take everybodythat need to take out of the way, out of the way, and that's exactly whathappened here...28/08... 28/23...well, GK seemed to me to be the kind of individual in termsnot poitical would be an easy grandfatherly type of person to get alongwith...28/33... he was a good rifle shot, he was reputed to be able to bring down arunning deer with iron rifle sights on a 30/6 bolt action rifle with oneshot...28/42... ...and that's a pretty incredible feat, He's the kind of person thatyou probably could have learned a lot from...28/47... ...from the philosphocal aspect of things, because he lived about 60years when all of this happened...28/53... as far as the political aspect of things, the posse comitatus simplymeans the power of the county, and it revolved around the notion that thesheriff is the leading law enforcement official and that is the highestlaw enforcement official that anybody should have to obey...29/09... ...and these individuals, GK and his group, were talking about havinga kind of an extra legal county imposed on the ND system of counties...theywere going to carve out a section and just declare themselves a county andthey were going to have their own sheriff, it was like a sheriff in England...29/30... ...the sheriff of Nottingham...and everything flowed from the sheriffand his authority, ...it turns out eventually that they didn't believe inthe 16th amendment which gives congress the power to lay and collect incometaxes from whatever source derived and they profess not to believe thatthat is a valid constitutional amendment...29/55... ...something that we've accepted since it was enacted 67 years ago.The aspect of carrying fire arms was foreign. Any weekend day in the fallyou'll see many pickup trucks with guns on gunracks perched right behindthe driver's head. on a set of gunracks, it's not unusual, it's forregingto me coming from ILLinois...30/23... ...where you just didn't have that situation at all, I was from chicagowhere the guns were either in the hands of agents or the bad guys...30/35... ...so it was much more rough and tumble out here so to say. Carryingyour gun to church didn't make that much sense. I attend church and nobodythat I know carries a gun and sets it inbeween his knees as he's praying...30/52... ...unless you're in a combat situation where you need to keep your weaponclose at hand, I don't imagine that that would be a norm for anyone...30/58... so the fasile use of the discussion of protecting your rights with afirearm based on some misguided notion that the second amendment gives himthe right to keep and bear arms and to do whatever is necessary to protecttheir property and physical interests is something that is foreign to mebecause individulas dont, by becoming part of civilized society give upcertain of those rights in favor of a normal police action...31/24... ...that we all expect... END THIS TAPE FISHER#5 DENNIS FISHER INTERVIEW CONT...FISH200/41...this was an unusual case in many respects, the FBI called this"MARMURS" for marshal murders. and the amount of resources thatthe govt was able to gather and focus in the efforts to find GK and hiscontiunual abilty to elude law enforcement for a good period of time untilan informant was develped inside of his camp in Ark...1/05... gave me the most pause, there's a live loose cannon out there someplace.And we had, course the rumor mill feeds itself rather well in time sof stresslike this . but, stress you come to work with that, depending on your background,mine was from the daily pressure of a deadline for a newspaper so it didn'tbother me very much...1/27... ...you go to work, you work until you're finished and you go home. thisdidn't seem to have logical conclusion. there were some mile posts thatyou work toward. The judge set up some pretrial motions deadline and youwork yourselve to a frassile getting ready for those and when he set a trial...1/41... ...date. You knew within a day or two that that was going to be it.He backed it off by a week. FISH2So it was a very super stressful time , because of the mixed elementsof a mystery figure out there that you never met, that might come back anddo some more harm and try to break his son out of jail. Which was a concernof the marshals...2/03... ...so what we had was two hundred or more lawmen, US Marshals and theFBI, sometimes at loggerheads as to how they were going to proceed...2/15... ...helping to, helping us to gather the evidence that we needed. Andby the way that was gathered all within a day or two, except for the evidenceat the forensics laboratory...2/27... ...the forensics people doing the ballistics. One of the things thatstruck me that went along was what was missed during the course crime scenesearch. And that happened to be among other things the pistol grips fromYori Kahls .45 handgun, which Bob Ramlo, who was one of the defense lawyersfor Mrs. Kahl, found during his honeymoon wedding trip when he was goingthru medina. Stopped and looked where Yori had been . a little utility typepost, and found these pistol grips on the ground and picked them up andtook them to the authorities...which of course is...3/07......what anybodyshould have done. FISH2 but it was just interesting, these little things come up because theycame up later in the course of the trial when the gun mysteriously appearedin a West Acres parking lot, not even a refuse container but a 55 gallondrum , instide a plastic bag was the 45 gun that Yori had at the time thathe was shot...3/28... ...and I remember also, this is not quite in answer to your questionthat Lynn Crooks made some reference to this in his closing argument, thathe was pleased...3/37... ...that Ken Muir may have gotten off one good live shot that could haveended this whole thing, but unfortunately it was nipped by Yori's 45 inhis shoulder holster...3/49... ... ...4/00 ...well, I was not the lead prosecutor...in this case. I wasdoing tasks that were assigned to me. I had a number of witnesses to prepareduring the course of the trial and I of course we discussed strategy asa group. And I was taking my lead from Lynn Crooks who is a very skilfull,methodical and thorough trial lawyer. All of those things come into play...theemotional atmosphere was very charged...4/28... ...it was charged because of the extremem dichotomy between what I sawas the side that the US was representing and the side that was being projectedon the other side, which was a vocal, subminority, a sub group of peoplethat would take the law into their own hands and we can't operate that way...4/50...FISH2 ...I keep remembering Robert Bolt's play , "A Man for All Seasons", during the course of the play, sir thomas moore, is talking to his nephew,and will is saying let's go after that man, cut down all the laws in englandif we have to, and let's go after him...5/08... ...and the character says in the play, but I would give the devil thebenefit of the law Will, because if you cut all of the laws down, wherewould you turn when the devil turned on you? And that kind of ...5/22... ...thing. And here we have, not arch black and white figures, by anymeans and the govts never all right or all wrong. And there are some humanaspects, clearly humanatarian aspects to what these people believed, misguidedas I think it was...5/37... ... ...(sourgrapes from defense attnys) ...6/05...well, the watergate trials were held in Washington. The caselaw was quite clear that we could hold the trial in Fargo if the judge couldfind a jury. ...6/15... ...and in fact he was able to empanel a jury. I was teasing Lynn allthe time about moving the case to Guam. Which is of course out of the realmof the possiblity...It is a protectorect of the US and we could have gottenour plane tickets and just headed over there...6/29... and I kept coming down during the jury selection and I would said, wejust got closer to Guam when we would use up more prospective jurors thathad been summoned into court...6/43... ...so you had to find your humor where you could...I never for a momentas we were going thru this case that it was still not a jury question, theycould have acquitted everyone as far as I was concerned. So I was underthe gun. Not like Lynn and I have talked about it afterwards, it was justa question of which charges they were going to be found guilty on. 7/08... ...that was my first murder case, so it made a difference to me. AndI wanted to make sure I performed to the best of my ability. We had to sleepin our own beds...7/21... which is nice, hell we could camp in a hotel, I've done it an awfullot, it doesn't make any difference...7/28... ...7/44...well, I was assigned to write the answer and response by thegovt. on the pretrial aspects of this thing. it was a manufactured issuefrom my persepective. There is a separation of powers issue that goes onhere. The marshal is a person appointed by the president for a specificjob to do. They work in the executive branch in the dept. of justice...8/03... ...they also had functions in protecting the jury, which is part ofcourt security. And judge Bensen of course is part of the judicial branchand appointed for life and above the fray. and he's demonstarted in thecourse of his career that he doesn't get down in the thick of things likethat...8/18... ...and oof course when you ask a judge and it's his discretion whetherto excuse himself, they call it recusal. if you fail there what's your nextmove? You certainly wouldn't go to the court of appeals right away. becauseyou certainly wouln'd certify it as an issue that was serious enough todo that. So, you're piquing the dragon so to say...8/34... ...if you don't like this man, you're asking him to get out of the case.What's going to happen when you're finished. What I saw was a fair impartial, unbiased, detached, referree, run the case just like he should of, inthe face of all the slings and arrows that these individuals could throwat him, most of which were manufactured and hocum...8/54...FISH2 ...9/09...by gag order I suppose you mean whether we can make extrajudicialstatements to the news media outside of what happens in court. But theyseem to forget that their function is to defend their clients and ours isdual, one was to prepare for trial and the second was to find the fugitivewho demonstrated how dangerous he was already. He shot and killed two people...9/34... and the function it seemed to me of the govt lawyers to make clear thatthere is this menace afoot, trancends any gag order, the judge could issuea gag order, but it would only have to do with what we were doing in trial,it wouldn't have to do with what we were doing searching for GK...5/52... and that's exactly what happened here. As a matter of fact we stoppedtalking to the press as soon as a trial date was set. And there weren'tanymore interviews of that sort because we wanted to get a fair and impartialjury as well...10/04... I mean we have an interest in justice as well... ...10/22...well, Jim likes to write a good yarn, a couple of friendsin Chicage say, never let the facts stand in the way of a good story...andif you're going to be able to sell a few more books based on what your observationsare, I can't take that away from him...FISH2 ...10/35... did I hate these individuals? No. I didn't then and Idon't now...I'm hopefully a person would consider a proficient prosecutor,one who can take the facts as they are, it would be easy to hate them ...butI could certainly show my disregard for what they'd done without sayingthat I had to hate them . No, I was hoping the processes of law would work...11/00 ...that's the reason we were in court, versus issuing me a 9mm and saying,okay, go take care of the situation...11/07... ...which is so far remote in thinking from what normally happens, sohe can have his quote, FISH2I didn't hate them then and I don't hate them now...11/18... ...but I didn't hide my feelings for what was going on. I mean, there'sa dramatic flair that most tiral lawyers develop that hopefully is not toomelodramatic and hopefully not too soap-operaish, but it was very clearcut what my functions were...11/40... and what I thought of everyone else in that courtroom. I mean withinthe realm of decorum and non consequensious conduct. ..11/48... ...12/02...they were wrong and that the allegations that were set outin the indictment were proven without any doubt, not even beyond any reasonabledoubt, when they left and went back to deliberate...12/13...what happenedout there as best we could present it to them. so it was an aggressvie focused,very sharply delineated trail as far as I was concerned.... ...12/38...because of the potential for fallout further I don't wantto talk about that...(still today?=JJ) ...absolutely...12/48... ...not so much me, you take the risks when you take em, by the natureof the job that I have,. it is not a normal job. I enjoy it, I have my owncase load, I develp my own style with the help of the people here...13/04... ...but the US dept of justice is a good agency to work for. there iscertain fallout for a person family and friends and people that you associatewith. and I just think to protect them it's probably good for me to stayaway from that, I can take with you off camera about it...13/20... ...13/33...well, the bomb threats came late, we didn't have any duringthe course of the trial...I'm also in the navy so I used the training thatwas given to all of us when you go overseas, ...not going in uniform, notcarrying ID card, not doing the same routine everyday...I didn't drive mycar to work for example...I went into a different door everyday...I toldpeople not to pick me up at my house...14/35... ...14/41...during the course of the case, somebody came out in frontof my house with a video camera with a wisconsin license plate on theircar...one of the more vocal persons in the whole posse comitatus was a mannear stevenspoint wisconsin...I felt something was amiss in this, so I dialedup an FBI man and he had the whole thing checked out within hours...15/13... it turned out to be an innocent sort of thing, but it came everybodysecond thoughts in my house,...it sure gave everybody a second beat to theheart as to what was happening...15/33... ...15/37...my kids were pretty young, my wife is a stalwart person,but you can penetrate anyone cal....I'm sure it got to her, it got to me...15/59... ...it was difficult to go to sleep, when you're in a rough and tumblesituation you develop flexible habits. You get done what needs to be done... ...16/31...any prsecutor that doesn't ask a pointed quetion on crossexamination using all the skill and abliility and resources that are available,probably shouldn't be doing the job... Vicious?...16/44 ...that's his view again, I'd say some of the comments probably wereascerbic, sharp, caustic, holding a person up to ridic¨le, mocking,but those are all stylistic devices taht are used to good effect, but youcan overdo them as well...so there's a point after which deminishg returnsset in...17/02... ...so viscious, I sdon't know, I'd say aggressive, I remember duringcross examination of his client for examople, Judge Benson was very rigidin his schedule, I think Yori Kahl got on the witness stand at about eleven-thirtyin the morning. we weren't going to break until noon, I had to hold my goodquestions that were going to evoke some response from him...17/27... ...for at least 30 minutes or more, and I had 30 or 40 items that tickedoff in my notes that I needed to get from him as either concessions by him,tings that he'd said, either to the agents, yeh, I think that I shot theguy in the white shirt, which was bob Chesire...17/42... ...yeah, I might have shot first, things that he was saying like thisfrom his hospital bed. And the change of clothes and the whole incidentup to the noon break and lynn uh, wrote me a little note saying, you'vegot to stall, and I knew that already, but I didn't mind having someonewho's someone much more senior than I , who'd been thru the Leonard Peltiercase...18/04... ...give me some affirmation of what I thought, so I shucked and jivedand did a little tap dance and showed em forty or fifty different weapons,cause we had a whole lot of weapons. and various other pieces of evidenceand did everything I had to do until the noon break and then
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A timeline of the life of Gordon Kahl, from early childhood interests, to his marriage to Joan Kahl, his decorated military experience,
his outspoken tax protest, the Medina shootout, and his unusual death in Arkansas in 1983.
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VARIETY / Indie documaker Jeffrey F. Jackson sticks it to the IRS and the Feds in "Death & Taxes," a hard-hitting reinvestigation of the 1983 Gordon Kahl case, about which questions still linger. Jackson's unfazed, investigative reporting-style approach and inventive handling of familiar material make this a controversial item for fests and progressive webs. Non-U.S. viewers will also get a charge out of its conspiracy theme. read more
CHRONICLES MAGAZINE / Gordon Kahl was a simple farmer who became famous for not filing income tax returns. Imprisoned and hounded by IRS agents who never did prove he owed any amount of money, Kahl and his son were involved in a shootout with police. The son is still serving a prison sentence, but the father was surrounded and shot in Arkansas by police officers who mutilated and burned his body. read more
GUNS & AMMO / A new video documentary, Death & Taxes, details a case of government murderously out of control that was briefly mentioned in the October 1994 Guns & Ammo article "The Ugly Truth About Gun Control." Death & Taxes is the story of Gordon Kahl, a North Dakota farmer and decorated World War II veteran, and his apparent death at the hands of federal agents. read more
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Now Available!This set of 6 DVD's comprises over 13 hours of uncut footage, including a 2+ hour prison interview with Yorie Kahl, and candid interviews with wife Joan Kahl. In this rich stockpile of research, you'll find many more threads than could reasonably be pursued in the final feature.
The Death & Taxes Miniseries DVD Set Includes...
01: Gordon Kahl Meets With Head North Dakota U.S. Marshal Bud Warren (60 min)
02: The Beginning: Gordon Kahl's military experience and views on a variety of subjects (93 min)
03: Gordon's Texas Tax Trial (90 min)
04: Medina Shootout (60 min)
05: Gordon Kahl Was...: A montage of over 25 people describing who Gordon Kahl was in their eyes. (50 min)
06: Mysterious Death In Arkansas (90 min)
07: Media Circus: Chronological portrayal of Gordon Kahl in the media (70 min)
08: Yorie Kahl Prison Interview (150 min)
09: Joan Kahl Uncut Interviews (120 min)
A little-known fact regarding Death & Taxes is the surprising connection to Timothy McVeigh and the ATF / Oklahoma City Bombing. Here's a clip of Jackson sharing the story during a director's commentary on his film Postal Worker.
The story of Gordon Kahl so captured the attention of mainstream America that it was turned into a highly-rated made-for-television movie titled
In The Line of Duty - Manhunt In The Dakotas.
DEATH & TAXES is the story of Gordon Kahl, a North Dakota farmer who became America's "most-wanted" fugitive. How had a WWII war hero become the target of one of the largest manhunts in FBI history?
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The badly burned remains of Gordon Kahl, with an island of skin that shows he was in a prone position at the time of the fire.
Was Kahl a racist, gun-toting fanatic? Or a victim of an IRS policy of harassing vocal tax protestors into silence to keep the rest of us intimidated? Did Bill Clinton conspire to cover-up the torture and execution of Gordon Kahl in Arkansas? Did federal agents mutilate and burn the body to cover-up the murder of the wrong man?
DEATH & TAXES follows the trail of Gordon Kahl as his body is exhumed for a new autopsy. Building on newsreel clips covering two fiery shootouts and hundreds of interviews -- with IRS agents and federal prosecutors as well as Kahl's family and supporters -- D&T explores the myths and controversies surrounding a man who dared to challenge the federal income tax system. Some revile Kahl as a cop killer. Others revere him as an American patriot. Which was he?
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