News
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project
At the request of the NJ Libertarian Party's Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project, Brick Township has moved to repeal their illegal loitering ordinance. The Brick Patch quotes the Project's Chairman:
"The ordinances are clearly unenforceable, and they confuse people - including the police," Paff said, explaining that a person mistakenly arrested or ticketed for loitering could turn and sue the township. "The laws against loitering were so often abused or misunderstood. It used to be just too easy to pick on certain groups."
Read article at The Brick Patch.
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- Written by: Webmaster
- Category: Police Accountability Project
Libertarians demand that cops live under the same laws as the rest of us
| Contact: Jay Edgar Office: 732-962-NJLP Cell: 848-525-0578 |
For Immediate Release |
Tennent, NJ, May 18, 2011: Prompted by recent Star Ledger articles regarding police officers' habitual failure to enforce drunk driving laws against State Trooper Sheila McKaig, the New Jersey Libertarian Party (NJLP) has formally petitioned the New Jersey Attorney General to take corrective action.
On May 16, 2011, the NJLP State Board unanimously voted to send a "petition for rulemaking" to Attorney General Paula Dow asking for "some rules that genuinely and substantially address the problem of police showing favoritism to fellow officers. A copy of the petition, which was submitted to Dow on May 17, 2011, is on-line at http://njlp.org/uploads/petitionToAG.pdf.
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Open Government Advocacy Project
The public comment portion of a Mount Laurel Board of Education meeting (the date of the meeting is not known) is below.
The comments are from students and parents praising and supporting certain teachers. By sliding the timer to 6:15, viewers will witness the board's determination that since the speakers are all making similar comments, future speakers will be ejected from the meeting unless the topics of their comments are "different" than what the board has already heard.
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Open Government Advocacy Project
On April 15, 2011, Hunterdon County Sheriff Corporal Sandra Ford delivered a writ of execution to the Wells Fargo Bank at 74 Church Street, Flemington and levied on Hunterdon's County's bank accounts. The levy amount, $93,265.37, represented legal fees that the County owes to the South Jersey law firm Friedman & Doherty, LLC of West Berlin.
The County was ordered to pay the $93,265.37 by Superior Court Assignment Judge Yolanda Ciccone's February 7, 2011 order that arose out of a class action lawsuit captioned James Gensch et al v. Mary H. Melfi, Hunterdon County Clerk et al, Docket No. HNT-L-307-07.
Gensch's lawsuit was a class action, filed on May 8, 2007, challenging the 25 cents per page charged by the self service copier machines located in the deeds and mortgages recording room. Gensch alleged that the 25 cents per page was too high and that the County was legally allowed to only collect its actual cost per copy, which Gensch estimated to be 7 cents.
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Open Government Advocacy Project
I am sometimes asked how I word my OPRA requests to public bodies that I wish to audit for compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act's closed session requirements.
I use the following form of request, since it is informs me of a) how current the body is on making its closed session minutes publicly disclosable, b) the level of detail contained in the body's closed session minutes, c) how closely the topics that the body resolved to discuss in closed session correspond to the topics that the body actually discussed in closed session, and d) the extent to which the body's closed session minutes are "reasonably comprehensible" as required by law.
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- Written by: Jay Edgar
- Category: Police Accountability Project
Last weekend Camden cops brazenly fired off 33 rounds in an effort to kill a dog. Stray bullets struck several nearby cars and houses. The story was covered by several newspapers including The Courier Post.
The New Jersey Libertarian Party have previously noted the level of police misconduct in Camden here and have held a loitering law protest in Camden.
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- Written by: pugmaster
- Category: Selected Blogs
For over 40 years, this nation has spent $40 Billion a year to fight a war that is not winnable. This war is not against a hostile or enemy nation, nor is it against an enemy organization such as Al-Qaeda. This war is none other than the war on drugs. It is a war on the American populace itself; it is war that breeds law enforcement corruption; it is a war that breeds violence in the street of every metropolitan city; it is war that makes criminality and criminal conduct sound appealing; it is war where profits are earned in the black market; and it treats those who abuse and use drugs like criminals and the dreads of society at large.
A War on the American Populace: There are individuals whom believe that the war on drugs targets only those who are considered “Kingpins” and members of organized crime. This may be true in some aspects, but it is not the whole picture. Often times, innocent civilians and regular folks are targeted. These people may or may not use drugs, but acting on tips from informants and others, police officers use their S.W.A.T teams to break into homes without a search warrant and search the dwelling. This has happened in states like Louisiana, Georgia, Florida and elsewhere. If the person is arrested, he or she is subject to asset forfeiture laws, child authorities are notified, his or her children are seized and the person’s life is turned into a living nightmare.
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- Written by: Brian Irving
- Category: Latest News
The race for the Libertarian Presidential nomination must not be about personalities, not about radicals and reformers, but rather about principles -- the basic, core principles all libertarians believe in
by Brian Irving
(libertarian)
Saturday, April 16, 2011
HICKORY, N.C. (April 16) -- R. Lee Wrights, a longtime libertarian writer and activist, announced today at the N.C. Libertarian Party State Convention that he will be seeking the Libertarian nomination for President of the United States. Here is his statement:
'I'm returning to the place where this campaign began -- ten years ago. North Carolina is where I was born, where I grew up and where I became involved in the Libertarian Party and the libertarian movement. It's here in North Carolina that the seed for this campaign was planted and nourished.
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Police Accountability Project
Today, I wrote the following letter, which should be self explanatory, to Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford. The exhibits referred to in the letter are on-line here: http://ogtf.lpcnj.org/2010105pJ//b10418HolmesExhibits.pdf
John Paff
Somerset, New Jersey
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April 18, 2011
Marlene Lynch Ford, Esq.
Ocean County Prosecutor's Office
119 Hooper Ave
Toms River, NJ, 08754 (via E-mail toThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )RE: State v. Holmes
Ind. No. 10-06-01190-ADear Prosecutor Ford:
Karl de Vries's August 27, 2010 Star Ledger article ("Hillside cop receives 3 years probation in domestic shooting") reported that Hillside police detective James Holmes was sentenced to three years probation for "shooting his stepson during a domestic dispute in his Toms River home." A copy of that article is attached as Exhibit Page 1.
After reading that article, I endeavored to learn whether Officer Holmes was, in accordance with N.J.S.A. 2C:51-2, a) required to forfeit his position as a Hillside police officer and b) disallowed from holding public office or employment in the future.
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- Written by: John Paff
- Category: Latest News
The Appellate Division of the Superior Court issued a decision today on April 7, 2011, in State v. Bradley, which can be found on-line at http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a0430-09.pdf
The decision is significant, in that it lays down a categorical rule that no pro se (i.e. a litigant proceeding without an attorney) complainant is permitted to appeal from a municipal court’s dismissal of his or her complaint for want of probable cause no matter how erroneous the probable cause determination. Further, given the text of Court Rule 3:23-9(d), even if the pro se complainant, after dismissal, were to hire an attorney to perfect the appeal, the county prosecutor could simply refuse to give “assent” to the attorney being a "prosecuting attorney" thus defeating the appeal.
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- Written by: Webmaster
- Category: Police Accountability Project
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- Written by: Wes Benedict
- Category: Latest News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 5, 2011
Contact: Wes Benedict, Executive Director
E-mail:
Phone: 202-333-0008 ext. 222
Libertarians say Paul Ryan is worse than Bill Clinton
WASHINGTON - In response to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's new budget proposal, Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle issued the following statement today:
"Americans hoping to get real about our national debt just got sucker-punched by Republican Paul Ryan.
"Republicans want to spend $40 trillion over ten years. That averages a staggering $4 trillion per year. As recently as 2000, federal spending was only about $1.8 trillion.
Subcategories
NJ Libertarian Blog
Imported from NJ Libertarian News from the published feed
Videos
This is a page of various videos that we have either created or found interesting. Be sure to check out and follow our YouTube page.
Open Government Advocacy Project
The Open Government Advocacy Project is a committee of the NJ Libertarian Party. Its goal is to ensure transparency and accountability at all levels of government. Articles posted here are a subset of the work of the committee. For more information visit the Open Government Advocacy Project blog.
If you would like to demand accountability and ensure that your local governing body or school board adheres to the Open Public Records Act we can help you request information from them. Contact John Paff, the project chair here.
Insight New Jersey
NJ government is huge and complex. Private industry is shrinking while the size and cost of government bureacracy continues to grow. The articles posted here provide a guide of the NJ State Government and can be used by citizens and candidates for office to evaluate what departments can be reduced drastically in size.
We'll start with just some of the departments and provide a breakdown on what they do (or purport to do), how many employees they have and how big their budget is.
Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project
The New Jersey Libertarian Party's Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project (“the Project”) seeks to get New Jersey municipalities to repeal loitering ordinances that should have been -- but were not -- repealed when the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice was enacted in 1979. The Project has successfully had loitering ordinances repealed in over 30 towns. For a summary listing of all the towns see Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project page.
Police Accountability Project
The Police Accountability Project is a committee of the NJ Libertarian Party. Its goal is to search out cases of police misconduct, file former Internal Affairs (IA) complaints when appropriate, and to publicize violations of rules and laws by the police. There may be other stories posted on the NJLP Police Internal Affairs Complaint Blog page.
If you would like to help or know of a case we should be looking at, contact the committee at
Legislative Affairs Committee
The Legislative Affairs Committee was created to allow a select core of Volunteers to take action on legislation and policies which directly affects the people of New Jersey.
[INTRO VIDEO - HOSTED ON NJLP STATE YOUTUBE AND EMBEDED HERE]
Staff
Legislative Director and Committee Chair
Volunteers: