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US Supreme Court 1st hearing on 3 October 2022. The case revolves around Michael and Chantell Sackett who bought a soggy plot of land near Priest Lake, Idaho in 2004. With the intention of building a home on the property, they began back-filling the low lying wet area. The EPA stepped in, claiming they were interfering with protected wetlands.

This is really damn amazing. I mean really amazing. I told you guys the Republican Establishment was coming to terms with Donald Trump because they hate Ted Cruz so much. This is another data point.Follow this story from the Politico. A leading Republican pollster privately told Speaker Paul Ryan and his leadership team Sen. Ted Cruz would be the biggest drag on House Republicans should he win his party's nomination, according to multiple sources who attended a small meeting of senior GOP lawmakers earlier this month.During the gathering in Annapolis, Maryland, Dave Sackett of the Tarrance Group reviewed a recent...

A Supreme Court decision last week involving an Idaho couple had special meaning for one Sacramento lawyer. For Damien Schiff, the ruling was the skier's equivalent of an Olympic gold medal, or a tennis player winning Wimbledon. At the age of 32, Schiff accomplished something few attorneys ever experience: He argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court – and won. On March 21, the court declared Schiff and his clients victorious in a case against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The decision overturned decades of lower-court precedent that prevented property owners from suing the agency after being served with...

Today, the Supreme Court has sided with an Idaho couple in Sackett v. EPA, a private property rights case, ruling they have the right to go to court to challenge an Environmental Protection Agency policy that blocked construction of their new home and threatened fines of more than $30,000 a day.

The Supreme Court has sided with an Idaho couple in a property rights case, ruling they can go to court to challenge an Environmental Protection Agency order that blocked construction of their new home and threatened fines of more than $30,000 a day. Wednesday's decision is a victory for Mike and Chantell Sackett, whose property near a scenic lake has sat undisturbed since the EPA ordered a halt in work in 2007. The agency said part of the property was a wetlands that could not disturbed without a permit. In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court rejected EPA's...

The Supreme Court has sided with an Idaho couple in a property rights case, ruling they can go to court to challenge an Environmental Protection Agency order that blocked construction of their new home and threatened fines of more than $30,000 a day. Wednesday's decision is a victory for Mike and Chantell Sackett, whose property near a scenic lake has sat undisturbed since the EPA ordered a halt in work in 2007. The agency said part of the property was a wetlands that could not disturbed without a permit. In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court rejected EPA's...

Justice Samuel Alito seemed none too pleased last week with the government’s argument in a case pitting property owners against the Environmental Protection Agency. Four years ago, Mike and Chantell Sackett bought property to build their dream home near a lake in Idaho. After obtaining local permits the Sacketts began work, pouring in some land fill. But their work came to a screeching halt when they were visited by officials from the Environmental Protection Agency. The couple was slapped with a compliance order asserting that the land is subject to the Clean Water Act and that they had illegally placed...

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. At issue is whether the EPA’s use of “administrative compliance orders,” which are essentially government commands issued to property owners, should be subject to judicial review under the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. In other words, when the EPA tells a homeowner to stop building because of a possible violation of the Clean Water Act, does that homeowner have the right to promptly challenge the EPA in court? As Robert Barnes observes in The Washington Post, “Justices across the ideological spectrum appeared troubled by...

With a federal government lawyer conceding almost every criticism leveled at the way the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency compels landowners to avoid polluting the nation’s waterways, the Supreme Court on Monday seemed well on its way toward finding some way to curb that agency’s enforcement powers. Their task was made easier as Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart stopped just short of saying that EPA was just as heavy-handed as its adversaries — and several of the Justices — were saying. Perhaps the most telling example: when several of the Justices expressed alarm that a homeowner targeted by EPA’s...

The government’s actions in a dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency and a husband and wife targeted by the agency when they bought a residential lot in Idaho and started building their dream home are both “outrageous” and “very strange.” There were comments today from justices on the U.S. Supreme Court about the Environmental Protection Agency’s actions in a fight with Mike and Chantell Sackett, of Priest Lake, Idaho. Their case began in 2005 when the Sacketts were working on their dream home. Their land, purchased for $23,000, is about two-thirds of an acre and is about 500 feet from...

WASHINGTON — Several Supreme Court justices are criticizing the Environmental Protection Agency for heavy-handed enforcement of rules affecting homeowners. The justices were considering whether to let a North Idaho couple challenge an EPA order identifying their land as “protected wetlands.” Mike and Chantell Sackett of Priest Lake wanted to build their house on the land. But the EPA says the Sacketts can’t challenge the order to restore the land to wetlands or face thousands of dollars in fines. Justice Samuel Alito called EPA’s actions “outrageous.” Justice Antonin Scalia noted the “high-handedness of the agency” in dealing with private property. Chief...

PRIEST LAKE, Idaho — Chantell and Mike Sackett’s dream house, if it is ever built, will have to be situated just so in order to minimize the view of neighboring homes and maximize the vista of pristine water and conifer-covered mountain. But their roughly half-acre lot in the Idaho Panhandle has proved to be the perfect staging ground for a conservative uproar over the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency. This month, the Supreme Court will review the Sacketts’s four-year-long effort to build on land that the EPA says contains environmentally sensitive wetlands. A decision in the couple’s favor could...

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” ... It’s one of the cornerstones of our entire legal system, with roots dating back at least as far as the Magna Carta, which declared, “No free man...shall be stripped of his rights or possessions...except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.” Unfortunately, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prefers a less venerable form of justice, as the Supreme Court will hear next month during oral arguments in the case...

In 2005, Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a piece of land in Idaho, and set about building a modest home on their $23,000 lot. The dreadful flaming eye of the Environmental Protection Agency soon turned upon them, and they were told their little half-acre parcel of land, which is located about five hundred feet away from a lake, was a federally protected wetland.

Just imagine. You want to build a home, so you buy a $23,000 piece of land in a residential subdivision in your hometown and get started. The government then tells you to stop, threatens you with $40 million in fines and is not kidding. That's the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, with briefs being filed today by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of a Priest Lake, Idaho, family, Chantell and Mike Sackett. Attorney Damien Schiff, who will be arguing before the high court in the case, said it's simply a case of a government run amok, and...

Just imagine. You want to build a home, so you buy a $23,000 piece of land in a residential subdivision in your hometown and get started. The government then tells you to stop, threatens you with $40 million in fines and is not kidding. That's the case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, with briefs being filed today by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of a Priest Lake, Idaho, family, Chantell and Mike Sackett. Attorney Damien Schiff, who will be arguing before the high court in the case, said it's simply a case of a government run amok, and...

A new Messiah has arrived for the right wing and every body is jumping for joy. "We are saved!" says one. "This guy will destroy Hamas and Hezzbollah!" says another. "No more land deals, no more Gush Katif betrayals!" says a third. Who is this new savior? Who is this great man riding into Jerusalem to save the day, end the peace process, build more settlements, rid the country of terror and make us all live happily-ever-after? Haven't you heard? It's General Moshe "Boogey" Ya'alon... so stand up and shout "HOORAY!!!" I can see it now. The YESHA council will...

In a case that has tormented the St. Paul Police Department for 34 years, two men were arrested Friday in the May 22, 1970, ambush murder of police officer James Sackett as he responded to a call of a woman giving birth in the Summit-University area. The FBI Fugitive Task Force and Minneapolis police arrested Larry Larue Clark, 53, in Minneapolis and booked into the Ramsey County jail pursuant to a sealed indictment, said St. Paul police spokesman Paul Schnell. Authorities arrested Ronald Reed, 54, at about 9 p.m. in Chicago. He was being held in Illinois, Schnell said. Sackett's...