Last week I blogged about the case against Adventure Outdoors, how they decided to accept the default judgment and not proceed with a bench trial; I placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the activist anti-gun judge in the trial.
Jay Wallace, owner of Adventure Outdoors emailed me yesterday clarifying and reinforcing the conclusion I had already drawn from the news coverage:
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.
Essentially, when the judge decided to now allow the trial to actually be decided by the jury, it was over for Adventure Outdoors – they made the decision that it wasn’t going to be worth it to fight out a bench trial that they knew their chance of winning was slim and none; instead they decided to accept the default judgment and then appeal from that position. More from Jay Wallace:
When the judge took away our constitutional jury, we could read the writing on the wall. We could not afford to spend/borrow $400, 000.00 in a no win situation. The court had already put in writing how it felt about the gun industry. I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and heard a whistle blow and I could see a large glass window with a man in a conductor suite. I believed it to be a train, so I moved out of the way in order to fight on an even playing field. Let Bloomberg keep spinning the facts with his press of a button press releases, truth and perseverance will bring him to his knees. I will not go away!
As I said in my email to him, I hope he does keep fighting. I have long maintained that Mayor Bloomberg is no better or different in his tactics than a schoolyard bully, and the only way to stop a bully is to stand up to him. I applaud Jay Wallace, and hope that he has success in his upcoming appeal of the default judgment.