Posted on 06/23/2005 8:07:27 AM PDT by Stew Padasso
Supreme Court rules cities may seize homes
HOPE YEN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights.
Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.
"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including - but by no means limited to - new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."
Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.
New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.
The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.
New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.
The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.
City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.
New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.
Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment. However, Kelo and the other homeowners had refused to move at any price, calling it an unjustified taking of their property.
The case is Kelo et al v. City of New London, 04-108.
This ruling bodes ill for the future of our country...
Some tanks, as well.
We will not let the government take our land to give to another.
I will fight to the death.
Are you with me?
Will anyone who criticizes these Nazi tactics by these dictators in robes be slammed or praised? The media are polling themselves as we speak, to decide which side to take. The powerful over the people? They will side with the stormtroopers in robes.
Our beloved Constitution has a big security hole. It allows judges to create laws. They will tear down this great free country if we don't reorganize our government.
...beyond the pale!
Well, at he very least I can get a snub-nose .38 and force him to wear panties on his head.
I will be there.
Didn't our forefathers fight a revolution over this kind of crap? This is beyond unacceptable, it's un-American. Yet another BS court decision that will probably require an unobtainable Constitutional Ammendment to correct.
Just damn!
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot....
I'm officially P*ssed. the phrase "from my cold dead hands" comes to mind.
change the word "homes" to "guns" or "pets" or "children" or "_______".
As long as it's for the "public good". Give me a freaking damn break.
And they talk about Conservatives out of control. Take a look at the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Government rules cities Government may seize homes
Careful, that's torture.
Mark Levin's idea to amend the Constitution to allow legislative override of judicial decisions is a must given the judiciary's tyranny. His other recommendation, judicial term limits, is also right on target. No more lifetime appointments!
This makes it all the more important that GWB puts his own people on the court!!!!!
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