The light of publicity forced its farcical prosecutor into dealing with NJ and its ridiculous gun laws into dealing fairly with an honest lady who needed to protect herself. m/r
A Glimmer of Hope for Shaneen Allen | National Review Online
By Charles C. W. Cooke 9-16-14
The prosecutor who sought to imprison her shows signs of relenting.
I am presently in the process of reviewing our office’s position on the appropriate resolution of this matter.” With these insipid and officious 18 wordsdid Shaneen Allen’s prospects improve for the first time since October of 2013.
A quick recap: Last year, a single mother of two named Shaneen Allen drove from her home state of Pennsylvania into neighboring New Jersey with a concealed handgun in her purse. Unaware that her carry-permit was not automatically accepted in all 50 states, Allen made the mistake of informing a cop who had pulled her over for a minor driving infraction that she had a gun in the back seat, and, having so confessed, she was arrested. Before long, she had been charged with both illegal possession of a firearm and possession of hollow-point ammunition — crimes that, taken together, carry a mandatory minimum sentence of three years in jail, and a legal maximum of eleven. Overnight, Allen’s world collapsed.
Bizarrely, officials in Atlantic County elected to throw the book at her, lead prosecutor James McClain not only declining to downgrade or drop the charges entirely, but also denying Allen entry into a “pre-trial intervention” program that would have kept her out of prison. As New Jersey’s website confirms, PTIwas instituted to accord “defendants, generally first-time offenders, with opportunities for alternatives to the traditional criminal justice process of ordinary prosecution.” In other words, it was established precisely for the likes of non-violent, first-time offenders such as Shaneen Allen. This being so, the PTIboard quickly accepted Allen’s application. McClain, however, refused to sign off.
McClain’s obstinacy was rendered all the more perplexing given that, a few months earlier, he had happily approved pretrial intervention for one Ray Rice, a star of the National Football League who had been caught on camera knocking his then-girlfriend unconscious and dragging her out of an elevator by her feet. …
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