Posted on 07/17/2019 7:20:30 PM PDT by DoodleBob
In his recently published memoir, The Making of a Justice: My First Ninety Four Years, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens includes an extensive discussion of his majority opinion in Kelo v. City of New London (2005). The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment indicates that the government may only take private property for a "public use." In Kelo, a narrow 5-4 Supreme Court majority ruled that almost any potential public benefit qualifies as "public use," thereby permitting the City of New London to take fifteen residential properties for purposes of transfer to a new private owner in order to increase "economic development."
Stevens calls Kelo "the most unpopular opinion that I wrote during my more than thirty-four years on the Supreme Court. Indeed, I think it is the most unpopular opinion that any member of the Court wrote during that period." Kelo was indeed highly unpopular. Polls showed that over 80 percent of the public opposed the decision, an outcry that cut across conventional ideological and partisan divisions. Some 45 states enacted eminent domain reform laws in response. The unpopularity of the ruling does not, however, prove that it was wrong. What does make it wrong are the serious errors in Justice Stevens' majority opinion.
In his memoir, Stevens fortrightly acknowledges one of them: serious misinterpretation of relevant precedent. Stevens' majority opinion in Kelo relies heavily on the claim that its very broad definition of "public use" is backed by "more than a century" of precedent. That assertion is false.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
I'm not going to dance on JPS' grave, but if every Kelo-taking in America that wastes away is renamed as "The Memorial John Paul Stevens Blight" I wouldn't object.
It’s [Kelo] a pure Traitor Roberts type of decision.
The funny part is that Trump likely agrees.
Lets not go there
Who is John Paul Stevens? Dead Ex-Supreme Court Justice....
Yawn.....
Uber Liberal. Good riddance. Can’t be forgotten soon enough.
“I’m not going to dance on JPS’ grave,”
Let me know where it is and if I’m in the neighborhood I’ll do it for you.
Fair enough?
L
What was Kelo?
You are more than welcome to dance wherever you want my FRiend as long as the property owner OK’s it. It’s a personal thing, though I did cheer OBL’s death and that of a recent carjacker who was killed by the father of the kids who were still in the car.
Of course, the whole deal fell through and the town never got its redevelopment.
Susie Kelo. She owned The Pink House in New London when a private developer sought to use eminent domain to get rid of her and other homeowners. In recently reading a bio of Eugene O’Neill, I was interested in reading that his father owned (or built) a house called The Pink House. I was wondering if it was one in the same.
Trump supported the Kelo decision 100%.
In effect, Kelo legalized the government becoming a reverse Robin Hood who stole from the poor (with "just compensation" nudge nudge wink wink) and gave to the rich.
Since Stevens was human he wasn’t perfect. That’s why the country was formed on the foundation of God. These court decisions should be based on what’s right or wrong morally. Looking at his record it doesn’t seem that he was a moral man.
Trump has a BIG blind spot there.
Yet... He still thought it was good law; so much for giving him props....
While Kelo was wrong because it was not done for public use could it be used as a precedent to seize the stretches of land along the southern border that the owners are using to thwart the wall which is public use?
Any land seized through eminent domain should be prohibited from generating tax revenue. Want land for a prison or school? Fine. Want land to spur business growth, fine but all goods or services linked to the property are tax exempt.
“Basically, in Kelo v. City of New London, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that it would be a Constitutionally-permissible “taking” if the state seized property for private development if it may spawn economic growth.”
I have nine acres of land adjacent to extremely prime development land of great worth which is being built on today. My land is most valuable and it is my land. I do not want it taken away from me for the greater good of development. It actually means tax base for government.
It is my land and I paid for it to do with it so as I so damn please. I hunt it, I garden it and sometimes sit it the backyard and drink coffee and watch the wildlife and it makes me happy. It is my land!
Try not paying your taxes, and see if it really is your land! You are just renting it. The day you don’t pay whatever taxes the Government wants, is the day it is no longer your land.
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