June 3, 2008 Update
Added June 2, 2008 to Court page today. I remain working on other items to publish. Stay tuned and keep signing my guest book. I like reading how everyone is feeling on this important issue.
June 2, 2008 Update
Well I’m sure many of you are wondering what is going on. I will do my best to give the details of what & why.
What:
This morning the Renzulli Law Firm respectfully moved to withdraw as counsel for Adventure Outdoors. Adventure Outdoors has decided that it does not intend to defend itself at a bench trial. Unlike the City, which can spend unlimited amounts of taxpayer’s money, Adventure Outdoors is a small retail dealer with limited resources and cannot afford to participate in a four-week bench trial, the result of which is a foregone conclusion and will result, as this court has acknowledged, in an appeal. This would require Adventure Outdoors to again try the case before a constitutional jury after appeal and remand. Adventure Outdoors has accordingly chosen not to engage in the futile exercise of defending itself at a bench trial, and to appeal from any default judgment that may be entered against it.
Why:
Adventure Outdoors’ decision is motivated by the fact that it will not receive a fair trail. The City selected the district judge that it desired to hear this case in violation of Adventure Outdoors’ right to due process. Six days before trial was scheduled to begin, the court deprived Adventure Outdoors of its Seventh Amendment right to a trial by jury and indicated that it would serve as the finder of fact. Based on its findings of fact and conclusion of law in the N.A.A.C.P. v. Acusport, Inc, the Court has already concluded that Adventure Outdoors has contributed to firearms-related public nuisance in New York City and a trial would accordingly be a mere expensive formality.
Adventure Outdoors was brought to trial in the fine City of New York under the pretence the Court has jurisdiction over a law abiding firearms retailer almost a thousand miles away. I am expected to allow the Mayor whom I have no vote to place a “special master” in my store and tell me how to run my business. The Court has prohibited the Mayor from testifying. He is the very person who is responsible for this litigation and he is not allowed to testify. Is the Mayor not able to speak in support of his decisions? The Court has allowed the City to remove the mention of the Second Amendment. The last thing the Court has done to me is by saying Cecilia and I will not be allowed to sit together along side our attorney.
Who could continue in this court under these circumstances? In every sense of the word justice is not being served for Adventure Outdoors, my family, the citizens of Georgia or even the citizens of New York City. Therefore I decided to no longer continue to fight in the District Court of the Eastern District of New York under such unfair conditions.
I will take my fight to the Appellate Court of New York and use my efforts there were I can have a fair chance. Do not deduct by our leaving this arena that we are giving up or feel the City is justified in any way of their actions, far from it. I am avoiding an ambush by those who feel justice is best served by those with an agenda rather than the word of law. Adventure Outdoors will fight another day and looks forward to returning under the jurisdiction of the New York Appellate Court.
I will post more tomorrow on how the City is spinning my decision to default..."
That was a slap in the face for the judge in that case, and gutsy for the lawyer to go along with that.