Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal
Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.
New case: Officials in James Island, S.C. say they are using eminent domain to take IJ-client Kyle Taylor’s property to build a park. But it’s a ruse! The land is ill-suited to be a park; that’s just something the town made up after caving to NIMBYs who don’t want anything built. Indeed, Kyle’s plans are fully compliant with the zoning, and he’s spent years jumping through every hoop the planning commission threw at him. The taking is pretextual, which the Fifth Amendment forbids. Boo hiss.
New on the Bound By Oath podcast: The Fifth Amendment says that the gov’t must pay just compensation when it takes private property, a command that, regrettably, is often treated as a mere suggestion. On this episode, we take a look at a variety of gambits and flim-flammeries that let the gov’t take property without paying for it.
New on the Short Circuit podcast: IJ’s school choice leader Michael Bindas discusses a qualified immunity case about a police shooting. (Which, believe us, is actually relevant to school choice.)
- Independent journalist runs a YouTube channel, “Long Island Audit,” where he posts his encounters with police. He’s arrested for trying to record in an NYPD stationhouse lobby. District court: No preliminary injunction on his First Amendment claim, but supplemental state law claims are likely to succeed. Second Circuit: Perhaps, but the state statutes are kind of unclear and new. Certified question to the New York Court of Appeals!
- Qualified immunity is the Veg-O-Matic of modern constitutional law—It slices! It dices! It kicks plaintiffs out of court!—but it doesn’t, the Third Circuit reminds us, change the basic rule that a plaintiff’s complaint need only contain a short, plain statement of facts, not allege enough facts to show a right was “clearly established.”
- 18-20 year olds may be able to vote these days, but because at the Founding they were “infants” for purposes of contracting it’s fine to prohibit them from buying handguns, says the Fourth Circuit (over a dissent).
- Pretrial detainees: Judges in Prince George’s County, Md. apply policies that arbitrarily deprived us the opportunity to be bailed out. District court: You cannot sue because of arcane principles of judicial absolute immunity. Fourth Circuit: Actually, it’s arcane principles of Article III standing that mean you can’t sue the judges. But you can sue the county, and it has no immunity.
- Is a Welsh law adopted under Henry VIII “relevantly similar” to the federal ban on possessing a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school? Fifth Circuit: For this guy? (Who for days slept in his car parked by a Beaumont, Tex. school, had notes referencing Islamic terrorists on his phone, and told a concerned parent that he had a “mission” that meant that after tomorrow no one would ever see him again.) Sure, close enough. Second Amendment defense is denied.
- Man who’s high on PCP crashes car
Article from Reason.com
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