Update in Almeida/Tumminelli Justifiable Need case

Today we filed a Combined Brief in Response to the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss and Reply to Defendants' Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Here is a short portion of the brief:

Plaintiffs are entitled to due process and did not receive it because of the Defendants’ ultra vires construction of the justifiable need standard and the foregone conclusion by the Defendants that they would not issue a permit even when Plaintiffs met justifiable need as set forth by the legislature. Statistics demonstrate that the Defendants’ application is ultra vires. In 2015, only 637 permits to carry were issued to non-law enforcement. Contrast this number with 23,004, which is the number of “violent crimes” listed by the New Jersey State Police for 2014. Assuming these individual victims met justifiable need, as they were involved in violent crime, one would expect New Jersey to have more permits to carry issued. However, out of those 23,004 individuals, we are left with the proposition that only .027% were issued permits which demonstrates that New Jersey’s justifiable need statute is being improperly applied. If one took the entire population of New Jersey at 8,899,339 and divided it by the number of permits issued, it equals 0.00007158% of New Jersey residents with a permit to carry a firearm. This figure demonstrates that New Jersey essentially has a complete ban on permits to carry.

This is another good part:

Defendant Sussex County

Defendant Sussex County is in default. See Docket #39. Sussex has refused to participate in this litigation. As a result, the relief requested as to Sussex should be granted. See USNile Ltd. Liab. Co. v. StormIPTV, 2:13-CV-00067 JLL, 2014 WL 4637218, at *4 (D.N.J. Sept. 16, 2014) (“The … order granting the preliminary injunction was a foregone conclusion as soon as default was entered because (1) the Court was required to consider the allegations as true upon entry of default, and (2) USNile's prior counsel did not oppose the motion.”)

You can read the brief here.

Special thanks to Ryan Watson and Alan Beck on the brief.