"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." - Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.
The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution provides important rights to individuals against arbitrary action by the state. These zones of individual protection have generally grown wider over time. An important exception in this expansion is the "Takings Clause," whose protections have dwindled over time. The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment basically requires two things: that private property seized by the state only be taken for "public use" and such taking needs to be accompanied by "just compensation."
Typically this clause has been invoked when the state seizes land under eminent domain for public use as in a park, hospital, highway, or sewage treatment plant, where the public actually comes to own the land. In other cases, the court has permitted the transfer to a private entity when the land will be used for the broad public purpose of a "common carrier." Principle examples include railroad and power line right-of-ways.
In its latest ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, by a slim 5-4 majority, the Court erased any residual protection against arbitrary state condemnation. Essentially the words of the Takings Clause have been changed from, "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" to "...nor shall a person be deprived of just compensation, when private property is taken at arbitrary public discretion." One key requirement of the Takings Clause is thus removed.
Even Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, concedes that under the ``public use'' provision the state "may not take the property of A for the sole purpose of transferring it to private party B, even though A is paid just compensation." Moreover, the Court concedes that the state may not cavalierly assert a public purpose as a pretext for a taking on behalf of a private entity. Nonetheless, the Court just made that very thing much easier to do.
Pfizer, a large and influential pharmaceutical company, is building a new research facility in New London, Connecticut in conjunction with a city redevelopment plan. By taking the land of the petitioners under eminent domain as part of the redevelopment plan, the city of New London asserts that the concept of "public use" is expansive enough to include the potential increase in jobs and government revenue when property is transferred from one private concern to another. The petitioner Susette Kelo and nine others involved in the suit are pushed out to make room for the economic development based on Pfizer's new facility. The property of the petitioners was not blighted, just inconvenient. The Supreme Court in the Kelo opinion endorses the expansion of state power.
