can't do justice with the above title..this may be the anti gun story of the year.
His mom calls police as she's always been told to do..the corrupt mafia state imprisons her son (would make the Soviets jealous, at least they followed the actual laws they had on the actual books). Ceasefire NJ is just fine with his sentence, btw...how do they know he's not a Democrat?

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http://www.pitchengine.com/free-brian-aitken-legal-gun-owner-jailed-for-7-years/105462/


FREE BRIAN AITKEN: Legal Gun Owner Jailed for 7 Years
Wrongfully, immorally and unjustly imprisoned: Brian Aitken's Story

11.30.2010– 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.

Brian had just brought his firearms from CO to NJ a week prior to his arrest–in fact, TSA cleared him to fly with them….the same TSA that terrifies five year olds girls and breaks a bladder cancer survivor’s urostomy bag. He had just moved back to an apartment in Hoboken 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.

During the next 18 months the prosecutor approached Brian and his attorney with plea offer after plea offer. If Brian pled 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.

During the trial it became clear to everyone in the courtroom that Brian fit 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.

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 FREE BRING AITKEN rally on December 12th.

How to help: Join Brian's Facebook Page, donate to his cause, and write a letter to the Governor requesting clemency! FREE BRIAN AITKEN!

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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20101130_Family__New_Jersey_man_serving_7_years_for_guns_he_owned_legally.html

Family: New Jersey man serving 7 years for guns he owned legally

By JASON NARK
Philadelphia Daily News

narkj@phillynews.com 856-779-3231

EVERYTHING Brian Aitken was or had worked for was wiped away one winter afternoon after his mother called the police on him.

Separated from his wife, the entrepreneur and media consultant, now 27, had moved back home to New Jersey from Colorado toward the end of 2008 to be closer to their young son.

In between jobs, his well-oiled life was running ragged, and on Jan. 2, 2009, when his ex canceled his visit with their son, he became distraught, muttered something to his mother, and left his parents' home in Mount Laurel, N.J.

"He said something that scared her, things that a guy will only say to his mom, like . . . 'Life's not worth living anymore,' " said Larry Aitken, Brian's father.

Sue Aitken, a trained social worker, decided to play it safe and called police, but she hung up before the 9-1-1 dispatcher could answer. Police traced the call and showed up anyway, and found two handguns in the trunk of Brian's car. And now Brian, her middle child, a graduate student with no prior criminal record, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for weapons charges.

No one blames Sue Aitken for Brian's arrest, except herself maybe, but his father and attorney claim that the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office and the former Superior Court judge who tried the case ignored evidence that proved Brian had the guns legally. The family has asked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for clemency and has garnered a great deal of support on a "Free Brian Aitken" Facebook page and among gun-rights advocates.

Aitken and his supporters believe that he had a legal exemption to have the handguns in his car because he was moving from his parents' home to a residence in Hoboken.

"This case is the perfect storm of injustice," said Aitken's attorney, Evan Nappen, of Eatontown, Monmouth County, who specializes in gun laws.

The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office and former Superior Court Judge James Morley said Aitken and his legal team tried during closing arguments to raise an issue related to Aitken's moving that wasn't presented during the trial, but Morley wouldn't consider it. Aitken remains in prison pending his appeal.

A few weeks after Aitken's trial over the summer, Morley learned that Christie was not going to reappoint him, due in part to a 2009 case in which he dismissed animal-cruelty charges against a Moorestown cop accused of sticking his penis into the mouths of five calves. Morley said there was no way of knowing whether the calves had been "puzzled" or "tormented" by the officer's actions.

Nappen thinks the animal-cruelty case exemplifies poor decision-making by Morley.

"Brian didn't receive oral sex from calves; he only lawfully possessed firearms," Nappen said.

A spokesman for Christie acknowledged that his office had received clemency requests for Aitken, but declined to comment further.
Handguns in a duffel bag

When Mount Laurel police arrived at the Aitkens' home on Jan. 2, 2009, they called Brian - who was driving to Hoboken - and asked him to return to his parents' home because they were worried. When he arrived, the cops checked his Honda Civic and, inside the trunk, in a box stuffed into a duffel bag with clothes, they found two handguns, both locked and unloaded as New Jersey law requires.

Aitken had passed an FBI background check to buy them in Colorado when he lived there, his father said, and had contacted New Jersey State Police and discussed the proper way to transport them.

"He bought them at Bass Pro Shops, for God's sake, not some guy named Tony on the street corner," his father said.

New Jersey and Colorado are on opposite ends of the gun-control spectrum. In Colorado, all he needed was the background check to own the guns.

In the Garden State, Aitken was required to have a purchaser's permit from New Jersey to own the guns and a carry permit to have them in his car.

He also was charged with having "large capacity" magazines and hollow-point bullets, which one state gun-control advocate found troubling.

"What little I can glean about the transportation issue leaves me puzzled, but a person with common sense would not be moving illegal products from one place to another by car," said Bryan Miller, executive director of CeaseFire NJ, an organization devoted to reducing gun violence.

"If Mr. Aitken did the research he said he did, he would not have hollow-point bullets and large-capacity magazines in the vehicle," Miller said. "They are illegal, period."

New Jersey allows exemptions for gun owners to transport weapons for hunting or if they are moving from one residence to another. During the trial, Aitken's mother testified that her son was moving things out, and his friend in Hoboken testified he was moving things in. A Mount Laurel officer, according to Larry Aitken, testified that he saw boxes of dishes and clothes in the Honda Civic on the day of the arrest.

The exemption statute, according to the prosecutor's office, specifies that legal guns can be transported "while moving." Despite testimony about his moving to Hoboken, a spokesman for the prosecutor said the evidence suggested that Aitken had moved months earlier, from Colorado to Mount Laurel. "Again, there was no evidence that he was then presently moving," spokesman Joel Bewley said.

After Nappen raised the moving-exemption issue, he said, the jury asked Judge Morley for the exemption statute several times and he refused to hand it over to them. Morley, in a phone interview, echoed the sentiments of the prosecutor's office.

"My recollection of the case is that I ruled he had not presented evidence sufficient to justify giving the jury the charge on the affirmative offense that he was in the process of moving," Morley said.

Morley declined to comment further.

Aitken, who did not testify, was convicted and in August sentenced to prison. His father said that his son was involved in an "incident" after arriving in prison but that he doesn't discuss it.

"This is the most normal, everyday, All-American regular kid, and for this to happen to him is a disgrace," Larry Aitken said. "It's a disgrace of society."

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