I hope, in time, that due process will prevail, and the Ruttenbergs are able to descisively punish the forces that attempted to unjustly punish them! This was not an accident. This is not an angry disgrunteled business owner with a grudge. Giving the local government immunity from prosecution… is an injustice.

Howard L.

Curiously, the Ruttenbergs did in fact win on the law as argued by the City. The Eastern District denied the City’s motion to stay or abstain per the various abstention doctrines (Younger, etc.) but then, on its own decided that the complaint’s allegations of fabrication of evidence and perjury with respect to that fabrication, was not sufficient to provide a cause of action with respect to deprivation of property without due process of law, i.e., a violation of the 14 Amendment of the Consitution. The Ruttenbergs will probably question that part of the Eastern District’s decision as an error of law.

The Eastern District also, apparently, ignored the fact that the June 2nd raiders knew in advance that Mr. Ruttenberg’s office was not part of the licensed premises yet, even though they had no warrant, they searched the office and seized two bottles of unopened vodka. At the ABC hearing the claim that these bottles of vodka violated the RnR beer license had to be dropped by the ABC because the ABC admitted, under oath, that they were legal in Mr. Ruttenberg’s office, i.e., they admitted under oath that they had no right to search that office as part of an ABC inspection. The raiders, including the ABC inspectors, had met before the raid and knew their intrusion on the office was illegal, but this didn’t stop them. Althougth this illegal search and seizure, a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, is as plain as day, and was set forth in the Ruttenbergs’ complaint, the Eastern District couldn’t be bothered.

The Ruttenbergs may not win this but they come from a tradition that never quits and I don’t think they will. Those of you who think about this should be glad. If not for people like the Ruttenbergs, who would be out there trying to preserve your rights under the Constitution the next time some local official decides he/she is going to take you down and the Constitution, and your rights under it, be damned.

Ruttenberg’s claim to have “won on all the legal arguments” is incomprehensible; the Court’s ruling on a motion of this sort meant that, for the sake of argument, the Court construed all of his factual claims in a light most favorable to Ruttenberg, and he still lost on the law.