Right Side of the Rainbow

Unsurprisingly, the U.S. Supreme Court today refused to reconsider its decision in Kelo v. New London:

The Supreme Court, given a chance to revisit a heavily criticized ruling, refused Monday to reconsider its decision giving local governments more power to seize people’s homes for economic development.

[…]

Justices did not comment Monday in refusing to reconsider the case, which had been expected because requests for a reconsideration of rulings are rarely granted.

[…]

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion and defended it last week in a speech in Las Vegas. The ruling was legally correct, he said, because the high court has “always allowed local policy-makers wide latitude in determining how best to achieve legitimate public goals.”

The ruling was not legally correct. The Fifth Amendment says:

nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Taking private property from its middle class owners and handing it over to the wealthy is not within the historically understood meaning of “public use.”

When the Court has been inclined to do so, it has managed to find liberties and protections lurking in the Constitution’s “penumbra.” But it was unable here to find one commanded by the text. So much for the “living Constitution,” which in Kelo did not evolve but instead rotted, just as Justice Scalia warned that it would.

The Court’s order insisting on its error is here.

(Thanks to Jurist.)