The sad story of Kelo v. The City of New London keeps dragging on, adding coda to epilogue, epilogue to coda.
Recently, Jeff Benedict, the author of Little Pink House, gave a talk attended by both Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Richard N. Palmer and Suzette Kelo. Afterwards, chatting with Ms. Kelo, Benedict was approached by Justice Palmer, who shocked the journalist with an admission: “Had I known all of what you just told us, I would have voted differently.”
The judge then turned to Ms. Kelo to say how sorry he was.
The judge, who had voted in the majority against the New London homeowner, was not recanting the decision, as such, but instead merely admitting that the facts as they developed in the case put the New London redevelopment project in a different light. And his apology? Not for the decision, but simply for Ms. Kelo’s suffering.
It’s something.
The real something in the case is what happened to New London’s Fort Trumbull site after Pfizer pulled out of the development. Most recently it has been turned into a dumping ground for branches, hedge clippings, broken limbs from storms, and the like. As one property rights watchdog put it:
Connecticut taxpayers have thus been soaked tens of millions of dollars, not just for nothing, but for making things worse.…
Much worse. Property rights were undermined. Judges felt compelled by practice and precedent to defend whimsical, frivolous takings powers against the just property rights of citizens.
We’re all sorry, now. But protecting property rights against abuse by government would mean never having to say we’re sorry, later.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
12 replies on “Apologies to Ms. Kelo”
I read the piece in the Hartford Courant. The whole piece ignores the 4th Amendment. The apology was the judge salving his conscience. What would occur later is not relevant to the case he was hearing. So, he based his ruling on what was promised by evil corporations and politicians. Just great. Is he related to Nancy Pelosi?? We hear these “apologies” all the time. I refuse to grant them absolution. Having been to the area prior to and after the decision, what is reported is sugar coated. Think the worst picture you see of a decayed neighborhood in a major city. Get the picture?
Dear Paul,
You have written thousands of essays through the years and I doubt if I have missed but a few. This is probably the most important. Excellent!
Lynn Atherton Bloxham
This is a demonstration of what has happened to the constitution. This is the prime example of courts ignoring the constitution when deliberating. People lost their homes and their rights to the whims of corporations and courts. I suspect that property seized was obtained at prices favorable to private enterprise. The entire purpose for the law of eminent domain is to allow government to obtain property needed for roads and public projects. Now the courts have decided to negate the protections of the constitution in favor of private enterprise. I personally believe this was judicial misconduct.
Many (decades) before Kelso, New York City used eminent domain for the benefit of the NY/NJ Port Authority to build THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.
Never mentioned- homw many hundreds of mom and pop busiensses (many if not most) in the electronics/radio/tv field-parts, etc. were forced to close.
This area, for one in the fields, was heaven-could find almsot everythign. Then, for the towers-scattered or lost.
But never mentioned
With judges like this, who needs a Constitution?
[…] 6 years later and still a dumping ground. […]
Don’t always agree with you, very seldom actually, but you did a masterpiece with this one. I predicted the World Trade Center would be a disaster when all the great old markets were destroyed, such as the Washington Market and Callanans (sp) which had been in business since the late 1770s!!
Your info should update Wikepedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Disturbing, would be a pathetic description of how I feel about this jurists remorse. Ms. Kelo was screwed royally. The whole idea of private property rights, all the way back to the Magna Carta, was to protect average citizens from the undue influences of power & money. Many ‘noblemen’ used similar tactics back then to steal the property they wanted or to punish any who stood up to them or in their way.
My question now is, the Judge now knows how despicable the decision was & how wrong it was, so what will he do about it? Hey, just being sorry is not enough. Now we need state courts & federal courts & our Supreme Court to revisit those decisions and to totally overturn theose decisions.
Its time our courts got back to working for the people based on the law & especially the constitution, & stopped representing the semantics of slick lawyers whose objectives are money & prestige.
The judges need to act since after all, like the birthplace & citizenship issues, ‘we the people’ have “NO STANDING” in our courts anymore.
The Kelo Decision allowed other cases of eminent domain abuse to pass. One was the seizure of hundreds of homes/businesses in Arlington, TX because the Dallas Cowboys “needed” cheap land for their billion dollar stadium. Another abusive plan almost passed had it not been for widespread anger towards Gov. Rick Perry’s TransTexas Corridor private toll road. This project would have seized 500,000 acres from Texas farmers, landowners, and homeowners and handed them over to a private toll company, Cintra of Spain, in order to operate a FOR-PROFIT road. And, not so shocking, Cintra/Zachary is a donor to Perry’s political campaigns. Football Stadiums and Private Tollroads are not “public use”, they are private economic development ventures.
The judge’s apology was less than convincing. He seemed to be saying that he was sorry people were forced out of their homes for a project that didn’t live up to its billing. That’s not saying much. So if that area were thriving today then he would have justified the decision? So much for principle.
The decision was wrong. Too bad he couldn’t just admit that.
Politicians are so addicted to other people’s money that they no longer are satisfied to just forcibly tax us, now they use government to take (by force) our property so they can get campaign cash (in this case from developers).
Instead of protecting our liberties, politicians are stealing them, as they’ve eliminated any restrictions on government.