Will KXYL's Connie and Marion read the last quote ?

 
Manzo favors house seizure in gun cases
New Jersey Journal | March 30, 2005
By Michaelangelo Conte
The spate of slayings over the first three months of the year has prompted Assemblyman Louis Manzo, D-Jersey City, to introduce a bill which would make it possible to confiscate a home or car in which an illegal firearm is found - even if the gun doesn't belong to the owner.
"Simply put, we cannot afford to lose another life, at a time when it has become a daily routine to read about another life lost in our neighborhoods as a result of gun violence," Manzo says in a letter asking state Assembly Speaker Albio Sires, D-West New York, to expedite a vote on the bill.
"Now is the time to send a message that the consequences for harboring an illegal firearm are severe and will not be tolerated by our law-makers, communities or families," Manzo says in the letter.
Manzo said the bill will make the stakes so high that people will "think twice about driving a friend (they) know carries a gun, and about allowing a family member to harbor an illegal gun in the home."
Even if the bill were passed, however, it would likely be challenged as unconstitutional, said Frank Askin, director of the Constitutional Clinic at Rutgers University in Newark.
"I'm skeptical the New Jersey Supreme Court would uphold it under the state constitution," Askin said yesterday. "I think under the state constitution there would at least have to be a innocent owner exception.
"The New Jersey Supreme Court has been much more protective of private property rights than the Supreme Court has been in recent years," Askin said.
Askin said confiscating a person's house, especially in a case where the gun found did not belong to the owner, would likely be seen by the court as excessive.
"Taking the house is so disproportionate to the crime, I think it would constitute cruel and unusual punishment," Askin said. "I would certainly say the American Civil Liberties Union would challenge that."