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Londregan’s mother, who was in her nineties, didn’t appreciate Tom’s decision to defend the city and the NLDC’s actions. “You really shouldn’t win this case,” she flatly told her son.

“Mom, I’m doing a job for my client,” he responded.

Yet it was more than a job for Londregan. His legal position was that cities had to have the right to exercise eminent domain in order to survive. Urban centers took care of the poor and disadvantaged. They had low-income housing, Section 8 housing, affordable housing, senior housing, along with mental-health clinics, homeless shelters, and social programs. And in New London’s case, a lot of real estate was tied up by nonprofit organizations, government entities and other buildings that were tax-exempt. Eminent domain gave cities a chance to compete with suburbia. “It’s the great equalizer,” he said. “We don’t have large tracts of land. Urban centers are cut up into little parcels. Where do we acquire large parcels of land to attract large economic engines to enable us to compete with suburbia? We can only get it through eminent domain.”

The law might be cold, but Londregan believed it was also clear: the city had the right to use eminent domain to carry out an economic-development plan that benefited the entire city.

34

LIFE IS SHORT

July 23, 2001

First it was calling up the mayor. Then it was speaking at a neighborhood forum. Next Susette had had to speak at a citywide hearing at the high school gymnasium, followed by a speech to the press from her front porch. Each time the audiences, venues, and circumstances seemed to take on more and more significance. But speaking in public never got any easier. Crowds and cameras didn’t fit in Susette’s comfort zone.

Even worse, nothing, she imagined, could be more serious than testifying under oath in a courtroom. Her stomach in knots, she skipped breakfast and dressed for the trial, dismissing all of Bullock’s repeated assurances that she would do just fine. That was easy for him to say—he was in front of judges all the time. Susette had never testified under oath.

Alone, she drove two miles to the courthouse, arriving just in time for a press conference outside that Kramer had arranged. Susette spotted many of her neighborhood supporters, including Mitchell, the Hallquists, Fred Paxton, and the other coalition members. The sight of so many close friends who had once been strangers when she moved to Fort Trumbull gave her courage.

With the other plaintiffs, she followed Bullock to a microphone as he revved up the small crowd. “We look forward to presenting our case,” Bullock told the press. “We look forward to the property owners having their day in court. We are ready!”

Londregan didn’t like what he saw. “I was taught in law school to take my papers and file them in the courthouse,” he said. “There are lawyers who file their papers with the newspaper first, then the court.”

Inside, Judge Thomas J. Corradino reviewed some last-minute paperwork in his chambers. Corradino didn’t reside in New London, and unlike most of the judges assigned to the New London District Court, he was a circuit trial judge, bouncing from one judicial district to another every four years. He figured this had something to do with why Judge Martin had assigned the Kelo case to him—he had no ties to the city. And from the city’s perspective, this was a very big case. All the pretrial publicity had made that abundantly clear.

But to Corradino, every case was big and important to the people involved. He planned to approach this trial just like any other. The son of Italian immigrants, Corradino had been born and raised in the New Haven area, attending Catholic schools until entering college at Yale and then continuing on to Harvard Law School. By the time he obtained his law degree, in the late sixties, he had heard about a new nonprofit agency called the New Haven Legal Assistance Corporation, which was dedicated exclusively to providing legal assistance to the poor.