Two points to take you to task for:
1) Well, the nine political hacks in black dresses have screwed us again -- and this time they didn't even bother with niceties like petroleum jelly.
The decision was 5-4, so it's unfair to say that all nine Justices decided wrongly.
2) This epilepsy of jurisprudence seems to center around John Paul Stevens.
He just writes the opinions. Opinions are assigned by the Chief. Stuff like this actually turns around Justice Kennedy, who is the new swing vote on close cases like this. He wrote a separate concurrence in which he articulates his uneasy support for the majority.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...read the opinions...
Mr. X,
Actually, opinions are assigned by the Chief when the chief is in the majority; when he isn't, the majority decide among themselves who to have write the opinion (at least according to Bob Woodward in The Brethren). In the two cases mentioned, Chief Justice Rehnquist was with the minority. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that the majority considered Stevens the Justice whose thinking best reflected the sentiment of the majority.
Kennedy is trying to carve out a place as the court's "pivot point," I think. He seems to be doing the "shoot for a legacy thing" lately, with his public call for a re-evaluation of capital punishment, his "uneasy" concurrences, etc.
Activist or not, I'd feel a lot better if we had a Douglas on the court right now.
Tom Knapp
I certainly don't like the substantive legal argument. And to the extent that this might impair Fifth Amendment restraint on *federal* eminent domain abuse, it's godawful. But the decision mainly limits Fifth Amendment restraints against states and localities, under the incorporation doctrine of the Fourteenth. Since incorporation is an illegitimate doctrine anyway, I think this is a matter for the state courts applying state constitutions and common law.
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