Today I wrote the following to the AJC:
"For a professor of law, letter-writer Patrick Wiseman shows little understanding of the Constitution in his support of the Kelo v New London decision. My point is illustrated in his use of the words, "public purpose." He cites this as reason to support Kelo, but the Constitution uses the words "public use," which is a completely different animal. Supreme Courts have, like Wiseman, stretched "use" to "purpose" or "benefit" over the years, but that only makes the judges that dissented show even more honor towards the Constitution. They are ignoring precedent to make the correct decision, and go with what the words are supposed to mean, not what activist judges have changed them to over the years. Maybe Wiseman should read through the Constitution and the Federalist Papers again before he teaches any more law classes."

In response to this:
"The hand-wringing over the Supreme Court's decision in the New London eminent domain case is completely out of proportion to what the court actually decided.

It has long been the rule in eminent domain cases that any exercise of the eminent domain power that serves a legitimate public purpose is constitutionally valid; it has also long been the rule that courts should defer to local judgment on what counts as a legitimate public purpose. All the court did in the New London case was to affirm these two longstanding principles.

That the four most conservative members of the court would have ruled otherwise shows that it is they who are the "activists" on the court. In a democracy, the presumption should be that local legislative judgment controls, and that such judgment should be overturned by a court only when a constitutional principle is violated. However one feels about the judgment of the New London City Council --- and I believe that it was arrogant, misguided and destructive of the security interests of property owners, and I will accordingly never choose to live there --- it violated no federal constitutional principle. Had the court ruled otherwise, it would have been "activist" in the worst sense.

PATRICK WISEMAN
Wiseman is a professor of law at Georgia State University."


What a silly man, using any excuse to support a decision that is obviously backwards when one considers the correct wording of the 5th Ammendment.