Basically, SCOTUS ruled 5-4 (majority authored by Stevens) that the 4th Amendment gives the government the right to seize private property if a commercial alternative to the seized property can expand the tax base. The dissenters basically said this is was state-sanctioned "reverse Robin Hood" since the seized property in this case was "run down" and the new owner was a real estate developer.
Property Rights Ping
Ah thank you Doodlebob
The govenment, for better or for worse, has always been able to buy private property for public use--for a courthouse, for instance--paying what a court would determine to be "fair market value." It may or not be a good price for the property owner, but that's how it works.
Kelo extended the concept of "public use" to extending the tax base--a feeble excuse if you ask me-- and sided with New London.
As everybody knows, the project never was completed and Ms. Kelo lost her property to eminent domain.
However, she did receive money for the property. Just how much, I am not sure.
Asset forfeiture, on the other hand, is based on the criminal law, not property law. Dating back to the middle ages, forfeiture is effectively punishing the property as a party to a crime. In many cases, the owner never gets charged or convicted, but loses his property--real estate, cars, guns, anything of value to the government--nevertheless. The legal cost for getting it back deters a person from even trying.
A famous episode of a government agency trying to seize property is when the sheriff, DEA agents and others unnamed broke in and killed millionaire Donald Scott, who was believed to be growing marijuana on his ranch near Malibu. The county wanted his property for "open space" and he didn't want to sell.
Wikipedia has a sanitized version of events here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Donald_P._Scott
The long version is a bit more conspiratorial, but how can it be disproven? These things can happen, whether we have laws or not.
why was this decision revisited?....I’m glad they did......