[Pennsylvania] Appeals court rules against seizure by eminent domain

Pittsburgh Post Gazette ^ | February 07, 2006 | Mark Scolforo

[grundle]

HARRISBURG -- A city agency violated the separation of church and state when it seized a woman's home to help a religious group build a private school in a blighted Philadelphia neighborhood, a state appeals court ruled yesterday.

In a 4-3 ruling, Commonwealth Court said the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority should not have condemned Mary Smith's property in North Philadelphia in 2003 so that the Hope Partnership for Education could build a middle school.

The court said the seizure by eminent domain ran afoul of a clause in the U.S. Constitution that keeps Congress from establishing religion or preventing its free exercise.

The partnership is a venture started by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus and the Sisters of Mercy, two Roman Catholic groups. The court ruled the authority may not take private property, then give it to a religious group for its private development purposes.

[twigs]

Goodness knows that North Philadelphia needs religious schools, but they need to buy land in the open market like everyone else. I'm glad to see this decision.

[So Cal Rocket]

Right ruling, wrong reason.

[On the Road to Serfdom]

You got it backwards. According to the court, everyone else except religeous groups CAN have the govement steal land for them.

Right outcome, very wrong reasoning.

[JamesP81]

Right ruling, but wrong reasons. I'm sure the school would be a good thing, but this is like Kelo. You can't take people's property and give it to private interests. This isn't a relgious freedom issue; it's a 4th and 5th Amendment issue.

[NTegraT]

"Right ruling, wrong reason. "

Amen.

[JamesP81]

Hmm, first 5 posts said the same thing. It appears great minds really do think alike :)

[RonF]

I agree; right ruling, wrong reason. If the government can take private land and turn it over to a private party, it shouldn't matter whether or not that party is a religious organization or not, as long as all religious organizations have the same opportunity. But government should not take private land and turn it over to a private party. "Public use" doesn't, or at least shouldn't, mean "whatever the government thinks would have some public benefit eventually".

[VRWCmember]

Terrible rationale for this decision. Based on the way the ruling is described, it would have been OK for the city to condemn and confiscate the property in order to give it to a massage parlor, a strip bar, a porn video rental store, a Walmart, a Kohl's, a parking garage for a new casino for Howard Stern, or any other number of private commercial ventures, but giving the property to a private school that also happened to be a religious school is a first amendment violation. On the other hand, it presumably would have been fine to confiscate the property of a church or religious private school and turn it over to any of the above mentioned private business ventures so the property would generate local tax revenue. This is a fifth amendment issue not a first amendment issue. By making the decision about the "establishment clause" the court blew this one.

[twigs]

You're right. I had thought we might avoid the craziness here. I live in the Phlly region and my husband and I are currently looking for a new house. Kelo has made a huge difference in the way we are looking. It's the elephant in every room for every home where we look. We are not interested in living in a residential subdivision type area, so the places we are interested in might have attraction to others too.

[Gordongekko909]

Well, given Kelo, this was probably the only rationale that could make the result happen. The Fifth Amendment Takings Clause specifies "public use." Churches can't really be "public use" under these circumstances. And apparently, nothing in Pennsylvania's state constitution could get the job done. If there were, it could be more restrictive on the government than Kelo is. Hell, a state constitution could prohibit eminent domain altogether. But my guess is that the constitution of Pennsylvania takes the Tenth Amendment route and just reserves as much power as possible to the state.

Either that, or the court was trying to keep the ruling as narrow as possible to avoid running afoul of SCOTUS.

[WayneS]

Yes, it's the FIFTH amendment upon which this ruling should have been based, not the First.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Indeed, we hardly need the government enabling religions that believe the government has the right to seize private property! And it's hard to see how a religious group that had government seize private property to build their school, could believe or teach otherwise.