We earlier linked the story of Brian Aitken, a man convicted under New Jersey’s tough gun control laws of transporting his own firearms at a time when he said he was between household moves. Some readers felt the reporting on the case had not drawn out as many of the details as they wished, and Radley Balko has now moved to fill the gap with a column at Reason delving further into the story (more).
6 Comments
So there really *wasn’t* a hidden story. It was just the judge being a bastard for no apparent reason.
Which should make this pretty easy. Appeal the conviction, get it overturned by summary judgement, then sue the state for legal malpractice (and Morley personally.)
[…] Walter Olson Posted by Darleen @ 9:41 am Comments (0) | Trackback […]
I don’t see why this even got to trial. That case would have passed through several hands at the DA office. No one there had the courage of using discretion?
Overturn the conviction by summary judgment? Sorry, it doesn’t work that way in the real world.
The police are not your friend. Never, ever call the police for ‘help’ unless the help you need is to match physical violence with physical violence. The cops got drug out on some nutty sounding wild goose chase by a lady who couldn’t decide if there was a problem or not with a despondent guy in a domestic situation who just happens to have guns in his trunk. So the cops have been dicking around for an hour or more trying to figure out what the hell to put on the report when viola, guns turn up. Well hot damn now the sarge won’t chew their ass for wasting time.
[…] A seven-year New Jersey gun-possession sentence gets coverage in the Philadelphia Daily News [via TigerHawk; earlier here and here] […]