Shaneen Allen and her children
As regular readers know, I’ve been following the case of Shaneen Allen arrested by New Jersey State Police and charged with possessing a handgun and hollow point ammunition. This vicious criminal dared to have her handgun in her glove compartment while on a brief trip through New Jersey, and is now facing years in prison. Interested readers can find the previous articles here:
“Shaneen Allen: The Cruelty of New Jersey Authorities”
“Hollow Points: Bane Of Know-Nothing Politicians”
From Radley Balko at the Washington Post, an update:
According to her attorney, she is eligible for a diversion program for first-time offenders that would avoid a felony conviction and mandatory 42 months in prison. But for reasons he has yet to articulate, New Jersey District Attorney Jim McClain has refused to allow her to take advantage of that program.
Now, New Jersey Judge Michael Donio has denied Allen’s request to have the charge dismissed.
The words common sense were mentioned quite a bit during Shaneen Allen’s hearing yesterday in Atlantic County Superior Court.
Allen, 27, cried for a moment in the hallway with her son Naiare and his father after a judge denied her motion to dismiss weapons charges filed against her in October and refused to overturn a prosecutor’s decision to deny her entry into a first-time-offender diversion program.
So Allen walked back into court, turned down a plea deal that would have given her a 3 1/2-year sentence and decided to go to trial in October, hoping a jury would use some common sense and not send a working mother of two to prison for not knowing New Jersey’s gun laws.
Prosecutors have near-total discretion in these matters. Any man with a heart would surely authorize a pre-trial diversion program for Shaneen Allen. She has no criminal record, she had no criminal intent, unaware of New Jersey law–she lives in Pennsylvania–she merely made the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is a hard working single mother of two young boys, a medical professional, working two jobs to support them. She bought her gun only because she had been twice robbed. If there is anyone more deserving of a pre-trial diversion program, I’ve no idea who that might be.
And of course, Leftists, those champions of women, minorities, and the downtrodden, those kind and caring lovers of “the people,” have weighed in as well:
“Fortunately, the notoriety of this case will make it less likely Pennsylvanians will carry concealed and loaded handguns in New Jersey, thereby making them and the Garden State safer from gun violence,’ said Bryan Miller, executive director of Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based movement to prevent gun violence.”
Compassion apparently goes out the window when competing with the chance to restrict the rights of anyone–even a highly sympathetic black woman–to defend their lives.
Even the Huffington Post, not known for supporting the Second Amendment, adds some useful information:
The same judge and prosecutor who let professional football star Ray Rice avoid a trial after beating his wife unconscious are pushing forward with the prosecution of Shaneen Allen, a single mother who carried a gun into New Jersey without realizing her Pennsylvania permit didn’t apply there. [skip]
Allen tried to avoid a trial and jail time by applying to a pre-trial intervention program in New Jersey for first-time offenders. Ray Rice, the Baltimore Ravens running back who knocked his then-fiancee unconscious during an altercation in Atlantic City in February, was accepted into the program in May.
But Superior Court Judge Michael Donio and New Jersey District Attorney Jim McClain, the same judge and prosecutor who allowed Rice to avoid prosecution, denied Allen’s application to the program on Wednesday.
Ah! So New Jersey diversion programs are for woman-beating football players, not non-resident women who carry a gun to keep men from beating and killing them! Ah, the majesty of the law.
Why does anyone that hopes to survive long-term live in New Jersey?
Stately McDaniel Manor 
There seems to be an accelerating trend to apply the law by the letter – regardless of the spirit or of the particular circumstances.
Add to that the abuse of plea-dealing.
And then it gets worse…
I came across this:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/06/report-feds-created-400-new-crimes-since-2008/
“The federal government has created more than 400 new crimes since 2008, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
…
The 2008 report identified “at least 4,450 federal crimes.” Adding in the CRS report tally, there are now 4,889 federal crimes on the books.”
.
Society seems to be getting more vindictive and uncaring.
Apparently the US is a world leader in terms of the percentage of population in prison.
It seems to be intent on maintaining that leadership.
Screw New Jersey.
I hope Shaneen Allen finds representation willing to fight this case as far as it needs to go. Maybe Ms. Allen can become the test case for federal reciprocity. Clearly, her second amendment rights were violated.
Dear Chip Bennett:
Actually, she is being represented by an accomplished attorney specializing in these issues. Given her race and circumstances, one would think her a poster girl for national reciprocity, but as long as Democrats control the Senate, that’s going nowhere.
“Heeding God’s Call”? To do what? Railroad an innocent person to prison?
These hypocrites claim that the notoriety of the case will “fortunately” deter people from carrying guns, thus making them and the state “safer from gun violence.” Yeah, right. Because “gun violence” is the result of peaceable citizens carrying guns in their glove compartments. Muggers, carjackers, and street gangs are not any part of the problem.
And, are we to believe that not having a gun will make one “safer from violence”? Ms. Allen was robbed twice before she ever bought a weapon.
And thank goodness Delbert “Shorty” Belton, Fannie Gumbinger, Nicole Brown Simpson, Ron Goldman, Brian Watkins, Julie Love, and Catherine Genovese were not carrying guns. If they had been armed, someone might have been hurt.
I was under the impression the ‘Left’ was Godless anti-religion folks. Heeding God’s call must be the exception that proves the rule.
Dear RuleofOrder:
Actually its rather the opposite. More leftist denominations and congregations tend to become much more interested in “social justice” and political activism than Christianity. Certainly, some on the right do as well, particularly in areas such as abortion policy, but not quite in the same numbers and in the same ways.
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