Constitutional Challenge against BSL in Westbury NY - Courts decision

The court finds that the law is unconstitutional because it is in the nature
of ex post facto law and violative of the Fifth Amendment of the US
Constitution in that it provides " nor shall any person be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law. In addition to the
absolute bar on pit bulls the law does not tell the reader wheter the
village, it's agents or assigns, have the power to confiscate the offending
animals and if so, what compenstation, if any, owners would afforded. This
too runs afoul of the Fifth Amendment.

The court does not accept the tourted legal argument presented by the
prosecution in this cae/ The "pit bull " law provides for an illegal
prohibition against a particular breed and must
stand on it's own without connection to the "off leash" charge. The argument
of an alledged attack by the dog, thus suggesting it thereby became
inhernetly dangerous, de hors the record; is collateral; unproven and
irrelavant for our purposes here.

Finally, this local law by barring a specific breed has also, in this courts
opinion, run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution which
provides no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protestion of the laws."  That language of the Constitution must
necessarily apply to Villages and other municipalities. Thus the defendants
here would be afforded the unequal treatment of the laws if this local law
is allowed to be selectively enforced against tham and their dog. See contra
People v. Al Munin A Jabaar 163 misc.2d 1045;623 N.Y.C. 2d 500; 1994 N.Y.
Misc. LEXIS 643, November 1, 1994.  Accordingly, that portion of the local
law regarding pit bulls is hereby struck down ans severed as
unconstitutional !!!


Dated: April 9, 2003
Westbury, New York
Honorable Thomas F. Liotti
 

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