The Supreme Courts decision on Kelo v New London on June 23, 2005, with a 5-4 ruling in favor of New London, "was an incredible loss for constitutional rights" (Berliner, Yale, 2015). The outcome of the case resulted in the removal of federal constitutional protection of private property under the Takings Clause. The Supreme Court upheld the Connecticut Court in that “economic development” satisfied the public-use requirement of the Fifth Amendment and affirmed that the city was justified to improve their tax base, utilizing wealthier property owners.
Prior to the Kelo case, the court’s ruling on eminent domain was permitted though the use of public use, as permitted by the Fifth Amendment. In 2005, the court expanded those powers ruling that the transfer of land was permissible from one private party to another private party, in Kelo’s case a private developer, for use in economic development, even when the government had no way to prove the planned development of that land would ever occur. The supreme court further detailed that by doing so it would reject the literal requirement of the phrase public use and interpret it as public benefit.
The resultant actions were to take private property from residents and grant that private property to a developer to increase tax revenue and develop the city. This ruling greatly expanded the traditional historical definition of the power of eminent domain and by doing so, created a new precedent for the government’s right to seize land if they could provide it was for public benefit.
The Court referenced three prior cases involving the use of “public use”, Berman v. Parker (1954), Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984), and Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co. (1984). The cases referred to the use of declaring areas as blighted and the ability to prevent blighting of the city, redistrubution of land, and public use of land for an economic benefit. Ultimately, the Supreme Courts ruling established, a precedent for broad interpretation for public use and that economic development constitutes public purpose.
"To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property under economic development takings for public use is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property; and, thereby, effectively to delete the words for public use from the Takings Clause of the fifth amendment." (Kelo v New London). The initial public critisism and from the Supreme Court's decision was fairly equally distributed from both Democrat and Republican political parties. The aftermath of the Kelo v New London decision resulted in immediate actions taken from almost every state. In the end, the Kelo v New London decision set a legal precedent for future cases, allowing for the seizure of private land through the process of eminent domain. (See: Impact on Property Protection for Subsequent Actions After Ruling and New London and Petitioners After the Verdict)
