TheAgitator.com
The Outrageous Case of Brian Aitken
Monday, November 15th, 2010My crime column this week is about Brian Aitken, a guy with no prior record now serving a seven-year prison sentence for violating New Jersey’s gun laws, despite the fact that by any reasonable interpretation of the evidence, he didn’t actually violate them.
They’re not even bothering to disguise it anymore. The judge’s argument for exclusion is just a whisker away from, “Look, we know he’s guilty, so any evidence of his innocence is irrelevant and inadmissible.”
Allowing the accused to present a defense might make him look soft on crime. We can’t have defendants running around getting off on technicalities … like being innocent.
I don’t even know why I open these up anymore. This irrational anger, combined with a marked inability to change anything in these cases, surely has a terrible effect on my blood pressure.
Note: the anger isn’t irrational in that it is unjustified, it is irrational in that it essentially bypasses the rational portion of my brain and sets of my fight-or-flight instinct…
Seems Christie did’t get rid of this clown soon enough.
How does the permit requirement pass strict scrutiny?
New Jersey. What do you expect out of a state that doesn’t let you pump your own gas?
First mistake: moving back to New Jersey.
I fled NJ on Sept. 30, 1988, a victim of its drug laws, though not a fugitive of “justice.” I only return now to visit my family. Given the TSA’s new powers, I may never return again.
I’d go and make some senseless statement that this is not the America in which I grew up, but that would just be false nostalgia. America has always been totalitarian — it’s just less-well-disguised now.
Second mistake (though not his own), someone calling the police. If something isn’t on fire or someone isn’t dead, that’s a good indication that you want to leave them out of it.
Gosh! With such stringent firearm regulations, New Jersey must be the safest state in the Union!
No wait: Compton, New Jersey still leads the nation in violent crime. Not even Detroit can compete anymore.
It’s almost as if retarded gun laws are about as effective as the Prohibition on Drugs.
Face the facts. How hard is it to obtain illegal stuff? Even fucking HEROIN ADDICTS, a group not known for they prowess in solving complex problems, are able to obtain heroin with ease.
It’s what you DO with the stuff that’s important. And I don’t see where this guy is guilty of any crime whatsoever, much less a felony.
I cannot post it too many times in too many places. NEVER, EVER call the police. For any reason. I don’t care if you’re the victim of a crime. The police are NOT YOUR FRIEND. Even as a victim, they will look for some reason to arrest you. I have seen it happen, more than once.
I guess I’ll be sticking to PA casinos from here on in. I used to go to AC often, always with a handgun along for the ride. Didn’t know NJ had such draconian laws. It seems I’ve committed a felony numerous times in NJ. Won’t be setting foot (or tire) in NJ anymore.
The prosecutor clearly needs to learn some fucking discretion, but I’m not sure that the exemption technically applies.
The exemption is for if you are moving the guns from one house to another. Were the guns being stored at his parents’ house and then put in the car to be immediately transferred to his own residence or were they in his car for several weeks as the judge makes it seem?
It seems like it should have been up to the jury either way, though. Hopefully he’ll be pardoned or the appeal will be successful.
“During deliberations, the jurors asked three times about exceptions to the law, which suggests they weren’t comfortable convicting Aitken. Morley refused to answer them all three times.”
Put me on a jury and if the question is asked and silence is the answer, then the only option is acquittal.
Fucking sheep in the jury box. Don’t even realize they are the most powerful people in the goddamn courtroom.
I’m not as literate as to legal issues as most of you. My question is would this be appropriate for the ACLU to take on? The impression I have is that the ACLU are not huge fans of the right to bear arms but this case is an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
911 is a sledge hammer- don’t call it ‘just to be safe’. call as a last resort.
Cappy: “Put me on a jury and if the question is asked and silence is the answer, then the only option is acquittal.”
Unfortunately, you’re the kind of person whom everyone is cooperating to weed out of the jury (and I mean: judge, prosecutor, and defending attorney).
I’ve been bumped out of a jury pool by a judge so fast it would make your eyes spin.
1. Sad sad tale.
2. NJ gun laws are insane. Note to self, never move there.
3. To be blunt, hopefully mom learned a lesson and will vigorously teach it to all children she deals with in the future. I doubt it but Im a cynic.
4. I am half expecting to read 6-12 months from now that the ex-wife was banging a cop or DA at the time.
5. I’m surprised the DA didn’t try to bring in a federal Domestic Violence charge in there somehow. Ex has great ammo now (ha ha) against Aitken/his family regarding custody/visitation. Namely, they’ll have none.
6. Never ever let them search your car without a warrant.
Isn’t there still a 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution??
Wouldn’t an individual’s rights under the U.S. Constitution pre-empt any state law or local ordinance?
I believe that the criminal justice system should always be reluctant to punish someone who didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. And certainly even if this individual was technically in violation of the law (I am not sure he was, but just in case) a good prosecutor, who is supposed to represent the public good, should have used reasonable judgment to make sure that this individual doesn’t receive disproportionate punishment.
But as a New Jersey resident, I am extremely proud of our gun laws and wish that my state would be the first ranked state in the U.S. for the strictness of its gun laws by the Brady Center rather than the second ranked (California is first). I wonder how many of those individuals on here who wish to change NJ’s gun laws are even from NJ.
While it is possible to end the life of another human being using a wide variety of objects if one tries hare enough, guns are more lethal than those other everyday objects by an order of magnitude. Handguns in the possession of private citizens leads to the immoral situation where juveniles are criminally prosecuted for making the type of statements that all of us have made as child, but are now perceived as a “threat.”
I will be working with the Brady Campaign to pass new, stricter gun laws in this state, including mandatory ballistic fingerprinting for all firearms. The immorality of other states’ gun laws is shocking and Americans should be ashamed.
So, Mr. Goldman, your stance is that a woman, raped and strangled by an assailant, is morally superior to one who puts five rounds of .38 into her attacker’s chest?
Hoplophobia in action, folks, right here.
[...] 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). [...]