Ohio high court sides with citizens on eminent domain
In a year in which the executive and legislative branches of the federal government have attacked fundamental Fourth Amendment freedoms from unwarranted searches and seizures, along comes the Ohio Supreme Court to score a critical victory for our Fifth Amendment freedoms.
The state court socked it to the judicial branch of the federal government in its attempts to chip away at fundamental protections from unwarranted seizures of citizens' private property.
In a unanimous ruling last week, Ohio Supreme Court justices decided that private economic development is not a sufficiently strong reason under the state constitution to justify bulldozing people's homes.
Significance of decision
The case out of suburban Cincinnati was the first challenge of property rights laws to reach a state supreme court since the U.S. Supreme Court last year gave municipalities authority to seize homes for use by private developers.
In her ruling, Justice Maureen O'Connor underscored the pre-eminent importance of residents' rights: "For the individual property owner, the appropriation is not simply the seizure of a house. It is the taking of a home -- the place where ancestors toiled, where families were raised, where memories were made."
Eminent domain -- which allows local governments to go to court to force the sale of private property for public projects -- is sometimes necessary, but should be used sparingly and only when it can be clearly demonstrated that the action will benefit the community. Eminent domain as a tool for private profiteering has no such merit.
We're pleased the state's highest court agreed and hope its decision serves as a precedent nationwide to lessen the adverse impact of last year's ill reasoned federal court decision.