• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

In 1992, a twenty-two-year-old soldier was driving his Honda in downtown Washington, D.C. He was waved to the curb by a woman. It was actually a male police officer in drag who was over six feet tall, weighed 220 pounds, dressed in a black dress, red wig, and red flats. The cop said the soldier said he was looking for a date. The soldier said that the cop offered him sexual services for twenty dollars, to which he responded, “Yeah, okay,” and then he proceeded to drive away. He was later stopped by other police officers and arrested. The police dropped the charge of solicitation of prostitution, for unexplained reasons, but they seized and kept his car, and argued that it was forfeited under a law providing for seizure of vehicles used to solicit prostitution. The “Yeah, okay” (which normal people would interpret as “no way”) was enough to establish probable cause that an offense was committed. Probable cause is all that was needed to justify the forfeiture. On the night that a similar law went into effect in D.C., the police seized three cars and a mountain bike. It just so happens that it is general practice for police officers who seize property to take personal ownership of the property, and either keep it for personal use or sell it at public auction; what is being incentivized here is theft under the guise of law. Where are the courts and lawyers that are supposed to be watching out for our rights?

Buyer Beware . . . of the Government

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. stated in Pennsylvania Coal v. Mahon (1922) that “while property may be regulated to a certain extent, if regulation goes too far it will be recognized as a taking.” And the Fifth Amendment requires the government to pay for takings. How far does a regulation have to go to be considered a taking?

23

In 1996, a small college in Buffalo bought an old rectory. The college planned on tearing the rectory down to make way for a parking lot. Community groups petitioned the City to designate the building as a landmark which would make it untouchable. The preservation board recommended a denial of the petition, but this recommendation was overruled by the Buffalo City Council. The college asked for compensation on the grounds that the City had taken its property. The City refused to pay, and the court upheld the denial based upon the legal fiction that the property was not taken, even if it was now worthless to the college. The local groups now have the benefit of the use of the land without the inconvenience of paying for it, and the college has a worthless building.5 This is a clear injustice and an outrage.

In 1983, Joan Dawson bought a three-unit brownstone in Harlem. She moved in with her two grown children, two foster children, and a grandchild. Two of the units were renter-occupied and covered by rent control, but the law allowed an owner to take over an apartment for family use. That was precisely what Dawson planned. In 1984, New York City changed its landlord-tenant law so that tenants who lived in an apartment for twenty years could not be evicted under the owner-occupancy rule. Dawson sued, arguing that the change in the law took her property. She lost, and the court arrogantly noted that she should have known better than to rely on existing law since laws can always be changed. In 1994, she had to re-purchase her home by paying the tenants to leave. Apparently, the New York City courts are well aware that property rights, as well as many other rights, can simply be changed at the whim of the legislature. Is this justice?

Leave My Bundle Alone

Naturally, there are certain rights that come with property ownership. These rights are the right to use your property however you see fit; the right to exclude anyone, including the government, from trespassing on your property; and the right to alienate, or transfer, any or all of your property interests. It is very important to understand that the word property is not synonymous with land or a house; your land and your house are types of property.