Sheryl Stratton has an interesting news report, In Ballard’s Wake, Tax Court Releases Initial Reports, also available on the Tax Analysts web site as Doc 2005-18557, 2005 TNT 175-2.  Here is the opening:

The fallout from the Kanter, Ballard, and Lisle cases continues as the Tax Court releases over 100 initial special trial judge (STJ) reports and another controversial story emerges. The Tax Court identified 117 initial opinions submitted by STJs under the court’s Rule 183(b), which the Supreme Court recently held required the Tax Court to include those original reports in the record in the Kanter and Ballard cases. A Chicago newspaper reporter investigating the Tax Court’s procedures revealed that the trial judges’ conclusions in the final opinions differed from their conclusions in the initial opinions in four cases other than the one before the Supreme Court. Also, a motion received by the Tax Court suggests that yet another STJ’s original report that was not released may have differed from the opinion issued by a senior Tax Court judge.

For TaxProf Blog coverage of the Chicago Tribune’s coverage of the Special Trial Judge Report imbroglio, see here, here, here, and here.