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.
OhhhKaaay.
I thought someone wanted to *do* something rather than sit around typing.
Civil disobedience is a long-standing tradition in the fight for civil disobedience.
Home seizure is a civil rights issue.
Only the U.S. flag. Burning other flags is a hate crime if someone from that country sees it or otherwise finds out about it.
Right, but chaining yourself to city hall is hardly effective.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
Would you please cite examples from this thread so that those of us who run across your comments know about whom and to what you are referring?
Sandra Day and Rehnquist may retire, but they were on the losing side anyway. And now that this decision has been written, it won't come up again. And if it did, Scalia would probably vote for it the next time, since Scalia rarely votes to overturn previous SCOTUS rulings. It's really sad that SCOTUS decided this way.
The Supreme Court has already chained us to City Hall. The rest would just be performance art depicting the true state.
Someone else asked for ideas. I gave one that would, admittedly only do any good en masse.
Do you have any ideas as to a response that will cause action before the Connecticutt homeowners are displaced?
Wait until YOU get the order from the gov't to evict YOU from YOUR property and at THEIR, not your price and you'll have a different prospect.
I do not want to see and hear trash on the television. Do you understand!?
If you like to watch the trash channel, then buy a satellite. As for me and most Americans, we don't want to watch garbage in our homes. I am very glad that FCC harshly punishes TV networks that allow perversity to be aired.
There is right and wrong. And if you don't know the difference, you will suffer the consequences...
Welcome to FR. :-)
"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."O'Connor is so right. Our basic American rights are being trampled by the SCOTUS majority.
The good news is that SCOTUS decisions are reversible. I hope that President Bush gets a chance to nominate 3 or 4 justices with an ounce of common sense.
IMHO, this is not a conservative-versus-liberal issue. This decision ignores just basic American tradition and constitutional law. What is Kennedy doing voting with the majority?
We need a reaction that is huge and that involves as many people as possible. I'll bet that property rights are something that can get Republicans, Libertarians, Dems together - probably not the Greens or Communists.
What do you think we should do?
Try as we might, there really is no way back up that slope. It is done.
Ping!
I wish I knew. Some Freepers have been discussing backing an amendment:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1429070/posts?page=2
But it doesn't seem to be a very popular idea so far...
Pitchforks and effigies optional.
Letters and phone calls of to local and state lawmakers. Noise, lots and lots of noise.
They can't stand static, those "servants" of ours.
Do not be silent.
Forget about Zanzibar, Mugabe-come on over! /sarcasm
Progress could occur with this particular issue, but other abuses will slip through. The trend is downward, and I don't realistically see any way of stopping it in the long run.
Rule 308 bump.
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