Target Superstore, Walmart, K-Mart, Shopping Mall: all public establishments according to the Supreme Court - sarcasm
Most reasonable Constitutional scholars would answer "no."
That said, we have, for right and wrong, allowed the Supreme Court to be the arbitor of what is, and is not, Constitutional. The Court said "yes," so the answer is "yes."
Turning the seized property over to a private developer for his personal profit is not "public use," regardless of the compensation.
Yes. For instance, property is routinely condemned (with allegedly market-level compensation) for new highway consruction.
I think the key words in that are "for public use". Traditionally, that had been interpreted to mean actual use by the government (roads, schools, etc.). The question is 1) Are public good and public use the same thing? and 2) If so, is an expanded tax base considered public good?
The decision of the court, in effect, changed the definition of "public use" to mean anything a local gov't wants it to mean. Too bad they didn't define "just compensation".........
The notion of taking private property for such things as schools and roads or public buildings has not been controversial. What has been controversial over the years has often been whether there was "due process", whether or not the compensation was "just", and, which brings is to Kelo what counts as a Constitutionally permitted "public use".
>> She said it implied that the Government can take property for public use in so far as there is just compensation. Is this a correct interpretation of the 5th Amendment?
Sure. But up to now, this has always only applied to things like roads, ports, schools, courthouses.
Now, we have the prospect of eminent domain being used to hand over property for private use to private groups and individuals. This is a new and dangerous interpretation, that should be overturned.
The Connecticut legislature passed a law saying that using emiment domain to seize private property for development by private companies qualified as 'public use' under certain circumstances. The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld that law. Why should the U.S. Supreme Court step into a state matter when the state constitution does not differ from the U.S. Constitution? Defining public usage is, and should be, a state matter.
Yes, but calling a hotel a public use is a amazing legal acrobatic maneuver. Prior to that, public use was limited to things like roads, fire stations, jails, etc. Making increased tax revenues a justifiable 'public use' is a stretch that renders the Constitution virtually meaningless.
The ambiguous terms are "public use" and "just compensation"
As it is, perhaps the "august" body should be more appropriately renamed to "The K-Mart Court"(?) They could even run "blue light specials" on the steps of the courthouse.
The 5th Amendment does not apply to the states although, since 1925, the Supreme Court has told us that it (and most, but not all, of the rest of the BOR) does.
What the state of Connecticut did in the recent Kelo case is a matter for the people, the legislature and the courts of Connecticut to decide. It turns out that the Connecticut State Constitution (like most state constitutions) has an identical eminent domain clause as that in the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution...but the case should have ended after the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on the matter
Interesting points so far. The theory of Eminent Domain as exercised by the Federal Government, though absolutely unconstitutional, seems far more reasonable than the same theory when exercised by state governments, which may not as clearly be violating the Constitution! I think most of us understood (and continue to understand) the need for Eisenhower's highway system--which overstepped the enumerated powers of the Federal Govt and trampled on individuals' and States' Rights; but we don't understand at all a State's right to deprive a citizen of property. Maybe we're all ends' justifiers--national security trumps States' and individuals' rights?
Kelo is a radical revision of the common understanding of the individual rights bundled in private property. It strips away individual rights in favor of the government common good. It attempts to push us and our property into a socialist scheme where the interest of the group trumps the right of the individual.
In a collective socialist society, individuals are expected to bow to government and contribute their money, their property and their labor for the goals of the imperial state. Kelo does this.
This, of course, is in direct opposition to American individual freedoms as stated in the Bill of Rights. The founding documents are a written contract to assure that the individual freedoms owned by the citizen are not trampled by any group favored by government.
In Kelo, that contract was destroyed when the court held an illegal constitutional convention and rewrote the plain words of the 5th amendment: “...nor shall private property be taken for public use...”
The court deleted the phrase public use and scribbled in “public benefit.” Public benefit can mean anything, to anyone, at any time. Public benefit is simply the American version of the Marxist “common good.” Nothing more.
Public use is building roads and post offices and schools for the public to use. The government taking one’s home or business for a condominium complex, an office building or a factory isn’t public use. The public can’t use a condo or office or factory.
To purposely misread the plain words “public use” shows that these so-called “justices” have pledged allegiance to a foreign and alien political philosophy that demands state control of private property.
In Kelo vs New London, Souter has allowed that a private consortium (in this case the various condo/pharmacy companies, all obviously private entities...) - through the canard that they can generate more income via increased taxes to the government, can now be considered to be a "public" use.
This is outrageous and unconstitutional, a crass example of Orwellian doublespeak/doublethink! It is a blatant exercise of tyranny from the judiciary, for they have again taken the legislative power out of the hands of We the People, trampled upon the Constitution they are sworn to uphold, and said act infers what we Freepers - indeed all freedom-loving Patriots - know to be the current truth, as it has been for the last 75 years: that the cause of individual freedom upon which our Founding Fathers built our nation has been and is currently being eroded in favor of a government that decides what the rights of the People will be --- an utter and complete repudiation of the Constitutional truth that "the powers not specifically enumerated within this document shall be reserved to the People".
But don't take my word for it; as you, I am but a layman. There's plenty of other, supremely (pun intended) more knowledgeable freepers than I here whose thoughts you can tap into on this.