One common use of assertions is to assert "this line can't be reached" it's not
uncommon to have constructs such as:

  try {
    doSomething();
  } catch (SomeException se) {
    // can't really get here because doSomething() can't really throw
    // SomeException in this context, despite it's signature.
  }

To achieve failure capture in an assertion, one would do this:

  try {
    doSomething();
  } catch (SomeException se) {
    assert false : se;
  }

If the AssertionError has SomeException as its cause, the resulting stack
trace will be FAR more informative. Note that this is just an API refinement:
it is consistent with the existing spec.