[Political Junkie Too]

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments are talking about entirely separate things and it takes a pretty tortured reading of the Constitution to argue that either impacts the other.

I don't think it's that tortured, and I don't think one can easily attribute some amendments to be of any one "thing."

The First amendment was originally three separate amendments that were combined into one. What do bans on establishment of religion, freedom to worship, freedom of press, freedom to assemble, and freedom to petition the government have in common? Also, it's being first has no special additional meaning.

The Fifth Amendment is mostly about how a person is to be treated when accused of a crime. The "takings" clause at the end seems to be an afterthought if the Fifth is about criminal protections.

In that regard, the takings clause may make more sense being at the end of the Fourth Amendment, which focuses on protection of property against unreasonable search and seizure. The Kelo ruling seems to be beyond unreasonable seizures of "houses," which is a property that is specifically mentioned in the Fourth amendment, as opposed to just "private property" in the Fifth, or "papers and effects" in the Fourth.

-PJ

[Dog Gone]

I'm not aware of where the Fourth amendment has been applied in any real sense to civil proceedings like the Kelo decisions controls. Perhaps I'm not recalling an instance.

Due process transcends both criminal and civil proceedings, obviously, but I think it's a hard argument, and probably a groundbreaking one, to extend Fourth amendment protections into an eminent domain case. I wouldn't want to use that as a major argument.