Medary.com

This is un-freakin-believable. After taking their houses via eminent domain to build a shopping center, New London, Connecticut now has the temerity to charge the former homeowners back rent!

The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional under the principal of eminent domain, and now New London is claiming that the affected homeowners were living on city land for the duration of the lawsuit and owe back rent. It's a new definition of chutzpah: Confiscate land and charge back rent for the years the owners fought confiscation.

In some cases, their debt could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Moreover, the homeowners are being offered buyouts based on the market rate as it was in 2000.

This gives new meaning to "outrage."

Quincy is on this. As is Coyote Blog, BizzyBlog, and Catallarchy.

Original headsup via Reason Hit and Run.

Elsewhere in this episode of Imperial Judges: Ohio judge freaks out over criticism:

"Former Ohio attorney Elsebeth Baumgartner and the editor of a news blog, Bryan DuBois of Sandusky, Ohio, have been charged with intimidation and retaliation because a judge filed a complaint against them, claiming that he was intimidated by them and their charges of judicial corruption."

To allay his feelings of persecution, this "Jurist" has had the pair incarcerated, and has barred any communication with the outside world or with one another. Forget that silly ol' Constitution thingy - "that don't apply if'n you're a-talkin' 'bout me!" What, is this guy Judge Roy Bean? Is he on Indian Territory, or not otherwise subject to U.S. Code?

Perhaps it's time for a good solid discussion of the Second Amendment and the root causes of the American Revolution. Oops, that's probably "intimidating" too for the Right Honorable Judge Richard Markus.

via No Government Cheese.

Update: The Ohio Supreme Court has slapped down Judge Richard Markus and his lapdog proscecutor Mark Mulligan.

In what appears to be an ongoing attempt to taint a potential jury pool and wrongly use the criminal justice system and his public office to malign and attempt to discredit a critic who has levied charges of public corruption against him, Ottawa County prosecutor Mark Mulligan last week again attempted to ridicule and prejudice his critic and nemesis, former attorney Elsebeth Baumgartner by stating that her handwritten motion to dismiss charges of criminal contempt filed against her by a judge were the “chaotic ramblings of a disturbed person”.

The reason the motion was handwritten was because at the time it was filed, Baumgartner was incarcerated at the Cuyahoga County Jail in northern Ohio, having been indicted on numerous felony counts of intimidation, retaliation and possession of a criminal tool, a laptop computer, for having criticized visiting retired judge Richard Markus, 75, when he was presiding in a civil case against her last fall.

She was being held on an unlawful detainer of $360,000 cash only bond---such high bails allowed by law only in capital cases, a violation of the Eighth Amendment which states that excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.