Re: Supreme Justice\'s house/and may be seized
I will tell you from an experience by a friend that is being taken through the ringer by somebody that lost a planning battle. And is now making the friends life a living hell by using the power of city bureaucracies and politicians to further that person's own end of vengeance (and there are high ranked city employees that recognize this fact and are powerless to help stop it)... I have very mixed feelings about what this guy is doing to J. Souter.
This tactic also runs the risk of a small group of people who will attempt to poison any legal or political discussion by simply starting an eminent domain action against any public or private individual that they don't like. All it would take is 4 or 5 of these to completely destroy the Supreme Court's ability to hear and rule on a case. You could do the same thing with a local council or planning commission too until you get a mix of people that will "vote your way."
On the other hand—where do I donate to the cause? What a Hobson's choice.
My vote to fix this—Require all Supreme Court Decisions to be 9-0 rulings. If those learned turkeys can't convince each other, then their grasp of the law and history is not sufficient for them to be in such a position to begin with.
And, on the other hand, if a judge or law is overturned as unconstitutional, then that judge, those city council members, state/federal congress/senator critters, etc., that voted in support of that "obviously flawed" law should instantly lose their positions as they have not upheld their oaths of office.
Having a series of 5-4 decisions demonstrates that, somewhere, there are folks voting politics—not law.
-Bill
