JUDICIAL TYRANNY - Look out churches and other non-profits!

So, okay, no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes ... but one this big?

A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development [...]

Let's see, our church is in high-rent, premium section of our community ... we're old and we're "property tax exempt"! That means our "business" can be "seized ... against" our congregation's "will" in order for the very community our people built to increase its tax base.

The MSM has always told me conservatives on the top court where lackeys for the rich and influential (see press reports after 2000 presidential election decision); not so in this decision. Sandra Day O'Conner writes ...

Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. [...] The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.

Those currently in favor of this decision won't have to wait long before the bulldozers show up on their street or their children's street ... or so the pendulum swings.

According to reports ...

Under the ruling, residents still will be entitled to "just compensation" for their homes as provided under the Fifth Amendment.

But how, in the light of history and the filching of the public by its own watchdogs, can the second half of that clause be of any value to the people once the first half of it has been vacated?

My fear is specific: what will those with God-less worldviews (who have for decades lamented the tax exemptions of non-profits and lusted after their real estate) now do with this additional power? The last three decades have seen case upon case reported where communities have abused their eminent domain rights without this decision, now the door has been opened even wider.

I have no idea into what abyss prior rulings fall but they must. Consider this decision (scroll about half way down to "Freedom from Redevelopment piracy") by the United States District Court, Central District of California ...

What happened was that the City of Lancaster Redevelopment Agency was totally repudiated in their attempted use of eminent domain. The court rejected Lancaster on all points and set some limits on the Agency's use of Redevelopment law. The eminent domain attack brought into play the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. To read from the judgment: [There] "is an explicit limit on the power of government to take private property for public use, even if justly compensated, for it must serve a legitimate public purpose." And "a taking for purely private use is unconstitutional no matter the amount of 'just compensation' that may be given." In this case, "the evidence is clear beyond dispute that Lancaster's condemnation efforts rest on nothing more than the desire to achieve the naked transfer of property from one private party to another. Such conduct amounts to an unconstitutional taking for purely private purposes."

Sounds right to me but what do I know? I haven't owned a black robe since graduating from seminary 20 years ago!

Others on this -

• Okie on the Lam - "Your House Is Needed for the Collective!"
• Professor Bainbridge - "The Government Won Kelo" (and checkout the trackbacks, they're extensive)
  

UPDATE (6/25): Okie on the Lam has a new analysis that is up and worth the read if you're a little guy or a church.