First Ever SAFE Act Conviction Dismissed with Prejudice

The 2014 indictment leveled against Defendant-Appellant Ben Wassell in the first ever SAFE Act case was dismissed with prejudice in Chautauqua County Court on Monday. This final action represents the culminating victory for Wassell and Second Amendment civil rights advocates across New York State who sought reversal of the state’s first ever conviction under the unconstitutional and ineffective SAFE Act imperial gun control edict. Additionally, dismissal with prejudice represents yet another positive and decisive step towards SAFE Act repeal.

“Judge Cass, a distinguished county court judge, has dismissed all charges against Ben Wassell with prejudice, meaning they can never be brought again,” Jim Ostrowski, Ben Wassell’s attorney, said. “It so happens that the error that the appellate division ruled on, which is the attorney general’s lack of jurisdiction, was only one issue in our brief. But, they felt that, once they had reached that issue, that was enough to dismiss the case, and dismiss the indictment and send it back to this court for what happened today. However, that doesn’t mean there weren’t plenty of other issues in the case, such as the lack of evidence that Mr. Wassell had actually committed these crimes in the first place, and the fact that the statute that he was charged under was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment because it banned rifles that are in common use among Americans. And we do expect that the five members on the [U.S.] Supreme Court who support the Second Amendment clearly will eventually overturn this law.”

Read more at http://www.2awny.com/2019/07/first-ever-safe-act-conviction-dismissed-wi...