From The Weekly Standard:
’LAST SUMMER, in the case of Kelo v. New London, a bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld (and slightly expanded) the constitutionality of local governments’ seizing private property for economic development via the “takings power” of eminent domain. But in his majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens took care to insert this sentence in the closing paragraphs: “We emphasize that nothing in our opinion precludes any State from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power.”
Wednesday morning, the Buckeye State did just that. In a unanimous 7-0 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in favor of Norwood property owners who were challenging the confiscation of their land through eminent domain. (Norwood is a suburb surrounded by Cincinnati.) It marked the first eminent-domain ruling by a state supreme court since Kelo, and will surely set a precedent for other states wrangling over this issue. “It gives guidance to courts for the future,” says Dana Berliner, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which litigated the case in behalf of the appellants’