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February 16, 2007
Yards Ball Now In Judge's Court
Brooklyn Downtown Star editor and reporter Nik Kovac attended last week's eminent domain hearing and filed this report:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."
Those words are from amendments four and five of the Bill of Rights, adopted by the United States in 1789, and last week in Brooklyn federal court they were still being debated, well over two centuries into the country's legal history.
"Eminent domain," argued Douglas Kraus, one of the many lawyers representing various versions of state and local government in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case, now known as Goldstein v. Pataki, "is quintessentially of local concern." The magistrate judge, Robert Levy, then interrupted the ESDC-hired attorney for this question: "The public use clause [amendment 5] is written into the federal constitution. Does that in some way give credence one way or the other?"
Posted by lumi at February 16, 2007 8:09 AM