Oklahoma Supreme Court Upholds Property Rights!!
May 17th, 2006 by ArpanGreat news today from the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which ruled that local governments cannot condemn private property using eminent domain and retransfer it to other private parties for the purpose of “economic redevelopment.” For the conflict and backstory, see here.
The court wrote:
To permit the inclusion of economic development alone in the category of “public use” or “public purpose” would blur the line between “public” and “private” so as to render our constitutional limitations on the power of eminent domain a nullity. If property ownership in Oklahoma is to remain what the framers of our Constitution intended it to be, this we must not do.
