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How can we stop government from abusing the power to take away its citizens’ private property?
This week Scott Bullock joins us to talk about eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture, and a few very important legal cases brought by the Institute for Justice.
What is eminent domain? Can the government use eminent domain for “economic development”? Who is Susette Kelo, and why is her case special?
What is civil asset forfeiture? Why do police get to keep the proceeds from forfeiture? How can we reform forfeiture laws to incentive police to do the right thing?
Show Notes and Further Reading
Kelo vs. City of New London (Wikipedia page)
Jeff Benedict, Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage (book)
Forfeiture Abuse: Even Your Drums Aren’t Safe From the Police (video)
Federal & Local Law Enforcement Agents Try to Take Family Motel from Innocent Owners (video)
Scott Bullock, Marian Williams, Jefferson Holcomb, Tomislav Kavandzic, “Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture” (report)
Scott Bullock is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. His work focuses on property rights and economic liberty cases in federal and state courts.
Aaron Powell founded Libertarianism.org. He is now the host of (Re)Imagining Liberty, a podcast about the case for radical freedom.
Trevor Burrus was a research fellow in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. His research interests include constitutional law, civil and criminal law, legal and political philosophy, legal history, and the interface between science and public policy.
He is the editor of A Conspiracy against Obamacare (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Deep Commitments: The Past, Present, and Future of Religious Liberty (Cato, 2017). Burrus holds a BA in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. He also contributed a chapter to Libertarianism.org’s Visions of Liberty.