From old_age

[bobemm]

Sweet Jesus.

High court OKs personal property seizures

Does this not seem like a huge abuse of Eminent Domain?

And does it not bring "Snow Crash" just a bit closer? :-P

Yay, corporate rights vs. individual rights!!!

Comments

[old-age.livejournal.com]

I want them to build a porn shop right on top of my bedroom.

[chucknoblet.livejournal.com]

Well wouldn't that just be conveeenient.

[ludomancer.livejournal.com]

Judging from the type of people who visit porn shops instead of having the decency to download it behind closed doors, NO.

[kl8n.livejournal.com]

Fuck, that's two cases now where Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas have ruled the way I would have.

[chucknoblet.livejournal.com]

I know, I was really shocked about that. I didn't read the opinions though, maybe those would make it more clear. Have you?

What was the other case?

[kl8n.livejournal.com]

I have yet to read it. The other case had to do with medical marijuana. Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas dissented stating that the issue was a matter of states' rights.

[chucknoblet.livejournal.com]

Wow! What an unusual show of integrity!

[ludomancer.livejournal.com]

I'm so incredibly confused. If big government takes their hands off a very handsy small government, is that a triumph for liberty or no?

If my city ever forced me to move so we could have another Dress Barn, I think I'd like big government to protect me from their thuggery. :(

[chucknoblet.livejournal.com]

I agree. Eminent domain rubs me the wrong way a little bit anyway, but if it's for, say, railroads, highways, large-scale infrastructure, then fine I guess. But displacing any number of families to increase local tax revenues? It feels a bit slimy.

I honestly am a little bit confused by the fact that Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas ruled against this though. I feel like that means I must be missing something.

[qmrf.livejournal.com]

Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas ruled against it out of a feeling that personal property rights (your right to sell your home or to _not_ sell your home) are important enough that society has to have a _very_ compelling reason to force you to sell. It's consistant, I think - property rights trump government interest.

It also might not mean much within Michigan; see the discussion on ArborUpdate.

[chucknoblet.livejournal.com]

Murph - you will be my bastion of logical thought.

Here's how it still looks to me - this, eventually, breaks down to a debate between corporate rights vs. personal rights. An example scenario: a Wal-Mart will go to a city council and say, "We want to build on the corner of Prospect and Oak, but there are houses there. If you make it so we can build there, you'll get tons of tax revenue from us." City council says ok, and that's that.

Is that not what it comes down to? Wouldn't you expect the right-leaning justices to favor that?

*reads the link you provided*

[qmrf.livejournal.com]

Well, as a more precise answer, I'm guessing that Scalia and Thomas are going the "constructionist" route - the Constitution means precisely what it says. " . . .nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." "Public use" means that the public (government) is using it - a school, police station, road, etc. The Constitution says nothing about taken private property for private use. The loose interpretation is that if it serves a "public purpose", like providing jobs and tax revenues, then that can be considered a public use, and therefore it's kosher. The literalist reading is, "If there were a condition under which taking for non-public use, even with public purpose, were okay, then they would have said so. They don't say anything about taking for public purpose, therefore it doesn't exist." So that's what I'll credit definitely Scalia for, and probably Thomas.

Otherwise, sure, it does leave the door wide open for wheedling corporations to sucker the goods out of cities at the expense of some individual citizens. But it also leaves the door open for, say, a bunch of private citizens to convince a city that eminent domaining that WalMart and letting us tear it apart and build houses serve a public purpose. Or letting WalMart convince a city to eminent domain a Meijer. Or letting me convince the city to eminent domain your house and give it to me. The most likely condition is larger economic entities benefiting at the expense of smaller ones (e.g. large corporations over individuals and small businesses), but that's not by definition the case.

Glancing through the opinion (56 pages long, so I'm not reading it in depth yet), I see the following on page 7,

"the City would no doubt be forbidden from taking petitioners’ land for the purpose of
conferring a private benefit on a particular private party. . .Nor would the City be allowed
to take property under the mere pretext of a public purpose, when its actual purpose was to bestow a private benefit."

But, on page 15,

"Quite simply, the government’s pursuit of a public purpose will often benefit individual private parties"

The opinion seems to apply a deferential standard for review - the Court defers to the State, and the State of CT's legislature has authorized local governments to use eminent domain for economic development, so, therefore, it's a valid purpose.

(mini rant) And, DAMMIT STEVENS, I'm getting really fed up with you! This is exactly the same logic you applied to the medical marijuana case. "Congress says pot is bad, so therefore it's bad. Don't like it? Get the legislature to change it. Your state's legislature says eminent domaining your house and giving it to Pfizer is okay, so therefore it's okay. Don't like it? Get your state legislature to change it." That's baloney - you're there for a reason, Stevens, and that reason is to protect people from their government, not to tell them that the legislative branch is always right.

[chucknoblet.livejournal.com]

Ugh, it's all so complicated.

And, you are the second person so far today that I've seen say "STEVENS!!!!"

I think he's maybe just getting old :( At his age, I wouldn't want to deal with this shit either. So maybe he should just resign, but...oh...

[chucknoblet.livejournal.com]

And, I read your write-up...can MI supreme court decisions trump federal ones?

[qmrf.livejournal.com]

The Michigan decision was an interpretation of the Michigan Constitution; the Supreme Court decision was an interpretation of the United States Constitution. There are conditions where states can provide citizens with _more_ rights than the US does. For example, in Oregon there's a constitutional right to privacy; there's not in the United States constitution, except for a very dodgy and liable to be overturned stretch of the "protection from search and seizure" clause that was interpreted in by the Supreme Court a while back.

The "right to not have your house taken away" may or may not fit into this category. In order to know for sure, there would have to be another Supreme Court case about it, which means that a Michigan city would have to be pretty desperate, and willing to go through a few years of court proceedings.

So, as I understand it, maybe this is a case where the MI court has higher authority, and maybe it's one where the US court has higher authority, but we won't know for sure for a while, and the state of uncertainty favors abiding by the Michigan decision.

That's my "I've taken one class in land use law" opinion; I've got an e-mail into Stephen K Postema, Ann Arbor City Attorney that hopefully will be responded to with a more expert opinion.

[chucknoblet.livejournal.com]

That's my "I've taken one class in land use law" opinion

Ha! That's better than I can say. I feel like I have a good intuitive feel for how law works here (based of course on stuff learned in civics/government classes, but going beyond that), but that's a pretty weak claim to authority.

Maybe I should be a lawyer when I grow up :-P