Parker,В the Supreme Court held that вЂњwhen the legislature has spoken, the public interest has been declared in terms well nigh conclusive.вЂќВ Or to put it more plainly, the public interest is whatever the legislature says it is. The Bill of Rights is supposed to protect your property.В It provides that private property canвЂ™t be taken from its owners except for public use, and with the payment of вЂњjust compensationвЂќ to its owners.В But the way that both of those concepts have been applied by the courts is problematic, to say the least.ДЇew people have problems with taking private property for obvious public uses like roads, bridges, or schools.В But courts have interpreted вЂњpublic useвЂќ to mean pretty much anything the government says is for the benefit of the public, or for a вЂњpublic purpose.вЂќ In the 1954 case of Berman v.

( You can see a trailer here.) My verdict: Little Pink HouseВ is an outstanding and moving treatment of a legal issue that gets far too little attention: The extent to which the state can take your property away just because it thinks it has a better use for it.

I was fortunate enough to get an advance screener, and showed the film, which opens later this week, to my Constitutional Law class at the University of Tennessee.

Little pink houses of america