A Case of Justice Denied

A FREE BRIAN AITKEN rally will be held on Sunday December 12, 2010 at the American Legion Post 129, on 2025 Church Road in Toms River, NJ – August 27, 2010 Brian was wrongfully sentenced to 7 years in prison  He needs help to free him.

Here are the Details

Brian Aitken, the Law Abiding Citizen

Brian Aitken was a finance student at NYU, an economic scholar at the Foundation of Economic Education, a father, an entrepreneur, mountain climber, and so many other things. One of the things that he was not, however, was a criminal. No one, not the judge, jury, or prosecutor disputes the fact that there were no victims in Brian Aitken’s case. Regardless, he’s currently serving 7 years in state prison for a crime that thousands of people maintain he didn’t commit.

On January 2, 2009 Brian was arrested for illegal possession of firearms while moving from one residence from another. All of the firearms were legally owned—Brian passed three different FBI background checks to purchase and had even cleared an FBI screening for employment as a data researcher handling confidential information for a banking security software firm. His integrity, character, and right to own was not in question…so what was?

New Jersey statutes make it illegal for anyone without a concealed carry permit to possess a firearm even if it’s otherwise lawfully owned. The only way to lawfully possess firearms in New Jersey is through exemptions to the law like driving to and from a shooting range or moving residences. However, as they are exemptions from the law they must be raised during trial therefore removing the presumption of innocence for the charge of possession.

Publisher’s Note: While Brian lives in New Jersey and we live here in Arkansas, we need to stand together as Americans and resist tyranny everywhere it raises it ugly unwelcome head.

Brian recently transferred his firearms from Colorado to New Jersey a week prior to his arrest–in fact, TSA cleared him to fly with them.  This is the same TSA that terrifies five year old girls and breaks a bladder cancer survivor’s urostomy bag. He had just moved back to an apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey that he had moved out of a month earlier and closed on the sale of his Colorado home 11 days after his arrest.

Several witnesses, including the arresting officer, testified that not only did Brian have multiple residences but that his car was packed with his personal belongings–so much so that it took the police 2 hours and 39 minutes before they found Brian’s guns locked and unloaded in the trunk of his car, exactly as NJ law dictates.

Brian knew this because only days earlier he had found out through the NJ state police how to legally transport his firearms in NJ. The officers, believing Brian had done nothing wrong, then offered to leave the firearms at his parents’ house, but when they wouldn’t fit in his father’s safe the supervising officer decided to arrest him instead.  (How is that for unconstitutional laws?  These police officers had to put an unconstitutional statute ahead of upholding the Constitution of the United States.  In summary, they failed to uphold their oath of office.)

During the next 18 months the prosecutor approached Brian and his attorney with plea offer after plea offer. If Brian plead guilty he’d spend one mandatory year in prison and spend the rest of his life a convicted felon for a crime he didn’t commit.  Otherwise, the prosecutor was seeking the maximum sentence of 10 years. Brian, knowing not only that he had done nothing wrong but knowing that the law didn’t exist to punish innocent people, chose to take his case in front of the jury.  (Here is a clear case where jury nullification should have been in full dress.)

During the trial it became clear to everyone in the courtroom that Brian fit all the exemptions of the law for moving between residences.  However, the judge withheld the law from the jury, thereby ensuring a guilty verdict.  Regardless, the jury returned from deliberation three times specifically requesting to be read the exemptions of the law. One can only assume that this was so they could find Brian not guilty. The judge and the prosecutor made it clear that they had no intention of allowing Brian to walk out an innocent man. They were more interested in a guilty verdict than truth and justice.

Six days later Governor Christie decided not to reappoint Judge James Morley for his misconduct in 2 other cases where Judge Morley sympathized with an off duty police officer who molested farm animals.  (What a sick, unjust Judge!)

Brian was sentenced to 7 years in state prison even though there was no victim, no violence, and no crime. He was sentenced by Judge Haas, whose only knowledge of the case was provided by the prosecutor. Judge Haas did not preside over the case or have access to transcripts of the trial.

Gun owners and non-gun owners alike have banded together, not because this is an obvious Second Amendment issue, but because the judge so blatantly and with complete immunity withheld Brian’s right to a fair trial.

The New Jersey 2nd Amendment Society is hosting a BRING BRIAN HOME FOR CHRISTMAS rally.

See the Summary of Facts as prepared by Evan Nappen, Brian’s attorney, and see Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll’s plea to the Governor to pardon Brian Aitken here.

Print PDF