11 May 2008
Void Where Prohibited by Law

Void Bill of RightsAch! And you thought the picture to the left was a mere bit of sarcasm, didn't you? Well, this should set the record straight:

City lawyers, in a motion filed Tuesday, asked the judge, Jack Weinstein of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, to preclude the store’s lawyers from arguing that the suit infringed on any Second Amendment rights belonging to the gun store or its customers. In the motion, the lawyer for the city, Eric Proshansky, is also seeking a ban on “any references” to the amendment.
“Any references by counsel to the Second Amendment or analogous state constitutional provisions are likewise irrelevant,” the brief states.

I'm sure they'd find that pesky First Amendment to be "irrelevant" as well, if the case involved an unapproved publication or religion. The Fourth Amendment is already ignored.

No, I'm afraid the Constitution really is "Void Where Prohibited by Law".

Lawyers for Mayor Bloomberg are asking a judge to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during the upcoming trial of a gun shop owner who was sued by the city. While trials are often tightly choreographed, with lawyers routinely instructed to not tell certain facts to a jury, a gag order on a section of the Constitution would be an oddity.

(link) [The New York Sun]

via Overlawyered

08:37 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link