Real Estate & Property Law

Ceded Lands Case: Mountain States Legal Foundation Amicus Brief

By Robert Thomas (inversecondemnation.com)

The Mountain States Legal Foundation, "a nonprofit, public-interest law firm . . . dedicated to bringing before the courts those issues vital to the defense and preservation of individual liberties, the right to own and use property, the free enterprise system, and limited and ethical government" today filed an amicus brief in the Hawaii ceded lands case, now pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.  The brief is available here. 

The brief argues:

The State of Hawaii did not argue that, if this Court construes the Apology Resolution to confer special benefits on persons of Hawaiian ancestry, the
Resolution is unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection Component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Nonetheless, this is one question the Court must answer in construing the meaning and effect of the Apology Resolution. A universal rule of statutory construction is that "statutes should be construed whenever possible so as to uphold their constitutionality." In this case, however, the Apology Resolution and its clear use of a racial classification fail to meet strict scrutiny. Others of the amici will demonstrate that, if the Apology Resolution is construed to confer special privileges on persons of Hawaiian ancestry, the Apology Resolution constitutes a preference for a racial group, an assessment with which MSLF concurs wholeheartedly. 

MSLF Brief at 2-3.

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on December 11, 2008 (boomark / email).