Sandra Day O'Connor was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, O'Connor was the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. A moderate conservative, she was considered a swing vote. Before O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was an Arizona state judge and earlier an elected legislator in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate.
Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White was an American lawyer, jurist, and professional football player who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1962 until 1993. By his retirement, he was the Supreme Court's only sitting Democrat and the last-living member of the progressive Warren Court.
Potter Stewart was an American lawyer and judge who was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1958 to 1981. During his tenure, he made major contributions to criminal justice reform, civil rights, access to the courts, and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
The Institute for Justice (IJ) is a non-profit public interest law firm in the United States. It has litigated twelve cases before the United States Supreme Court dealing with eminent domain, interstate commerce, public financing for elections, school vouchers, tax credits for private school tuition, civil asset forfeiture, and residency requirements for liquor license. The organization was founded on September 3, 1991. As of 2023, it employed a staff of 157 full-time staff members in Arlington, Virginia, and seven offices across the United States.
The Connecticut Supreme Court, formerly known as the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, is the highest court in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices. The seven justices sit in Hartford, across the street from the Connecticut State Capitol. The court generally holds eight sessions of two to three weeks per year, with one session each September through November and January through May. Justices are appointed by the governor and then approved by the Connecticut General Assembly.
Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 (1954), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that interpreted the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court voted 8–0 to hold that private property could be taken for a public purpose with just compensation. The case laid the foundation for the Court's later important public use cases, Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U.S. 229 (1984) and Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005).
Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since August 8, 2009. She is the third woman, the first woman of color, the first Hispanic, and the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court.
Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held, 5–4, that the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another private owner to further economic development does not violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. In the case, plaintiff Susette Kelo sued the city of New London, Connecticut, for violating her civil rights after the city tried to acquire her house's property through eminent domain so that the land could be used as part of a "comprehensive redevelopment plan". Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the five-justice majority that the city's use of eminent domain was permissible under the Takings Clause, because the general benefits the community would enjoy from economic growth qualified as "public use".
Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff, 467 U.S. 229 (1984), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a state could use eminent domain to take land that was overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of private landowners and redistribute it to the wider population of private residents.
The Lost Liberty Hotel or Lost Liberty Inn was a proposed hotel to be built on the site of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter's properties in Weare, New Hampshire. The proposal was a reaction to the Supreme Court’s Kelo v. New London (2005) decision in which Souter joined the majority ruling that the U.S. Constitution allows the use of eminent domain to condemn privately owned real property for use in private economic development projects.
Joette Katz is an American attorney who is a partner at the law firm, Shipman & Goodwin LLP. She was an associate justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, where she also served as the administrative judge for the state appellate system, and later was the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. In various roles during her career she has had an impact on issues of state and national importance, such as: criminal law, capital punishment, civil rights and the right to education, eminent domain, same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights, sexual assault, sex trafficking, and helping children in state care move from institutions to families.
The Castle Coalition is a network of U.S. homeowners and citizen activists determined to stop the abuse of eminent domain in their communities, that is, the taking of private property by the government in order to give it to another private individual. The organization takes its name from the principle that Americans' homes or businesses should be their castles, that is, places where they are safe and free from abusive government power. The principle has been part of Anglo-American legal tradition since Edward Coke famously stated, "... a man's house is his castle".
Scott G. Bullock is an American lawyer who focuses on property rights issues such as eminent domain and civil forfeiture. He has been president and General Counsel at the Institute for Justice since 2016, a nonprofit libertarian public interest law firm. He represented Susette Kelo in Kelo v. City of New London, an eminent domain case decided by the Supreme Court in 2005. Bullock was a senior attorney before becoming the president of the institute and directed many cases on state and federal level. In 1994 he represented the institute in a forum on C-SPAN.
Flemming L. Norcott Jr. is a former Associate Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. He was appointed to the Connecticut Superior Court in 1979 and remained there until his elevation to the Connecticut Appellate Court in 1987. He was appointed to the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1992. He also serves as Associate Fellow of Calhoun College at Yale University, as well as a lecturer. Justice Norcott received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in 1965 and a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School in 1968. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut.
Cole v. City of La Grange, 113 U.S. 1 (1885), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court ruled on the use of eminent domain to benefit a private corporation.
Cornelia Thayer Livingston Pillard, known professionally as Nina Pillard, is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2013 as a U.S. circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Before becoming a judge, Pillard was a law professor at Georgetown University.
Leondra Reid Kruger is an American judge who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California.
In the United States, eminent domain is the power of a state or the federal government to take private property for public use while requiring just compensation to be given to the original owner. It can be legislatively delegated by the state to municipalities, government subdivisions, or even to private persons or corporations, when they are authorized to exercise the functions of public character.
James Chiun-Yue Ho is a Taiwanese and American lawyer and jurist serving since 2018 as a U.S. circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was appointed by President Donald Trump, becoming the Fifth Circuit's only Asian-American judge and the only judge to be an immigrant.
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023), is a United States Supreme Court decision that dealt with the intersection of anti-discrimination law in public accommodations with the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In a 6–3 decision, the Court found for a website designer, ruling that the state of Colorado cannot compel the designer to create work that violates her values. The case follows from Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. 617 (2018), which had dealt with similar conflict between free speech rights and Colorado's anti-discrimination laws but had been decided on narrower grounds.
