Biography
J. Tony Serra is a legendary San Francisco criminal defense attorney known for representing Black Panthers, the Hells Angels, and other counterculture clients, and for famously wearing dashikis to court. He openly refused to pay federal income taxes for decades, explicitly stating his refusal as political protest against U.S. military spending and wars. In 2005 he was convicted of willful failure to pay approximately $44,000 in federal taxes for the years 1998–1999 and sentenced to 10 months in federal prison. He served 9 months in a federal facility and one month in a halfway house. Asked at sentencing whether he would pay taxes in the future, he replied that he would not change his views. He has continued practicing law into his 80s, remaining one of the most prominent figures in American criminal defense.
NWTRCC’s separate 1974 court-history entry reports a four-month sentence and four months actually served for failure to file tax returns. It says Serra defended himself and was acquitted on two of three charges. The table’s year indexes the court proceeding, not a proven prison-admission year; the exact admission and discharge are not given. This is separate from the documented 2006–2007 imprisonment. Its 1986 entry reports a one-year suspended sentence and five years probation, with no actual jail service recorded; that suspended term is not added to imprisonment. NWTRCC court history.
