June 28, 2005
Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right...
...but this still seems quite appropriate:
Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.
Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.
On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.
Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.
The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."
Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.
"This is not a prank" said Clements, "The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development."
Clements' plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise investment capital for the project. Clements hopes that regular customers of the hotel might include supporters of the Institute For Justice and participants in the Free State Project among others.
A big thanks to Jon Moore for the link
Posted by Peter Mork at 2:05 PM | Comments | TrackBack
June 27, 2005
It Has Started
Tom Palmer links to this article from the Houston Chronicle:
FREEPORT - With Thursday's Supreme Court decision, Freeport officials instructed attorneys to begin preparing legal documents to seize three pieces of waterfront property along the Old Brazos River from two seafood companies for construction of an $8 million private boat marina.
The court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that cities may bulldoze people's homes or businesses to make way for shopping malls or other private development. The decision gives local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.
"This is the last little piece of the puzzle to put the project together," Freeport Mayor Jim Phillips said of the project designed to inject new life in the Brazoria County city's depressed downtown area.
Posted by Peter Mork at 3:11 PM | Comments | TrackBack
June 23, 2005
Economic Growth vs. Individual Rights
Supreme Court “liberals” stood up for developers, big business, and the power of the government over the individual in the 5-4 ruling today of Kelo v. New London.
It goes something like this: You own your home, unless of course your local government determines that it would be more useful to the economy as Burger King or a Target. If they feel that’s the case they can bulldoze your residence in the name of economic progress. Sickening.
Look, I think economic growth is extremely important, but it is not an end goal. Individual rights should trump any goals for "the good of society" set by politicians, economic development included. Wasn’t economic growth used in the 19th century to defend slavery? Sadly, once again, the government is ignoring the moral importance of individual freedom.
What scares me most about the Kelo case is that it makes states like California a prime target. Take cash strapped San Diego for instance. With a capped property tax of 1% that grows with inflation, local officials must be licking their chops at the prospects of refilling the city coffers. What’s to stop them from turning Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s home bought in the 1960s into a shopping center? Not only will the city start collecting additional sales taxes, but they’ll also get 1% of the property’s 2005 value annually instead of 1% of the property’s value in 1960. With California real estate prices performing as they have over the last few decades, this becomes an ever more appealing option to politicians.
There are lots of great analyses across the web but I thought this post by Radley summed it up nicely:
Sigh
The Supreme Court just ruled 5-4 that localities can seize land from private property owners and give it to developers -- for the sole purpose of increasing tax revenues.
The five most liberal justices on the court made up the majority, once again proving that today's left is utterly devoid of any principle other than ensuring massive, all-encompassing, ever-growing government power. In this case, they'll gladly side with huge corporations who collude with state and local government to screw powerless people out of the homes and property they've owned for generations. The corporations get cheap land below market value, and the local city council members get more tax money to throw around to win votes.
This was the worst Supreme Court term for the cause of liberty in a very long time.
It's hard to express how disappointing the last few months have been.
And this by Julian (via Will) wasn't bad either:
Now that the "liberal" justices on the court have sided with the drug warriors against cancer patients, and with a plan to rob people of their homes for the benefit of wealthy developers, will some court-watchers on the left begin to question the wisdom of having let economic freedom become the red-headed stepchild of modern jurisprudence?
. . . The straightforward implication is that any taking of a private residence to hand it over to a business, or just from a poor person to a wealthy person, will be a taking in service of a public purpose: As a general rule, the rich pay more taxes than the poor, and businesses pay more taxes than households.
Posted by Peter Mork at 11:10 PM | Comments | TrackBack
May 23, 2005
People v. McKay
One thing the current battle over judicial nominations has got me doing is reading the actual written opinions of the nominees. I found this conclusion from Justice Janice Brown in People v. McKay particularly enlightening. The case involved a bicyclist who was stopped for riding against traffic. Upon failure to produce identification the defendant was subsequently arrested and searched, which produced a packet meth hidden in his sock.
The question before the court asked under what circumstances can officers take an individual into custody for failing to produce identification, and thus was the search legal? Of the seven justices on the California Supreme Court, Justice Brown was the lone voice of dissent.
CONCLUSION In the spring of 1963, civil rights protests in Birmingham united this country in a new way. Seeing peaceful protesters jabbed with cattle prods, held at bay by snarling police dogs, and flattened by powerful streams of water from fire hoses galvanized the nation. Without being constitutional scholars, we understood violence, coercion, and oppression. We understood what constitutional limits are designed to restrain. We reclaimed our constitutional aspirations. What is happening now is more subtle, more diffuse, and less visible, but it is only a difference in degree. If harm is still being done to people because they are black, or brown, or poor, the oppression is not lessened by the absence of television cameras.
I do not know Mr. McKay’s ethnic background. One thing I would bet on: he was not riding his bike a few doors down from his home in Bel Air, or Brentwood, or Rancho Palos Verdes—places where no resident would be arrested for riding the “wrong way” on a bicycle whether he had his driver’s license or not. Well . . . it would not get anyone arrested unless he looked like he did not belong in the neighborhood. That is the problem. And it matters. “The rule of law implies justice and equality in its application.” ( Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville (1972) 405 U.S. 156, 171.) If we are committed to a rule of law that applies equally to “minorities as well as majorities, to the poor as well as the rich,” we cannot countenance standards that permit and encourage discriminatory enforcement. (Ibid.)
According to Atwater, a full custodial arrest for a trivial infraction is constitutionally permissible. Broad powers to search incident to an arrest have a long common law and constitutional history. (Taylor, Two Studies in Constitutional Interpretation, supra, at pp. 28-29.) However, if full custodial arrest is authorized for trivial offenses, the power to search should be constrained. If broad searches incident to arrest are permitted, the power to effect a full custodial arrest should be limited. To permit both full custodial arrest for minor offenses and virtually unlimited authority to search incident to such an arrest allows officers to push past the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment. When officers may arrest for minor offenses, conduct virtually unlimited searches, and are granted unbounded and unreviewable discretion to select the target of such enforcement activity, the resulting search cannot be constitutionally permissible.
It is certainly possible to argue that the rationale of Atwater can be extended to encompass what happened here. The question is why we should do so. It is clear the Legislature could not authorize the kind of standardless discretion the court confers in this case. Why should the court permit officers to do indirectly what the Constitution directly prohibits? How can such an action be deemed constitutionally reasonable? And if we insist it is, can we make any credible claim to a commitment to equal justice and equal treatment under law?
Well . . . . No. Not exactly.
BROWN, J.