Fundamental Restrictions on governmental business operations"That government can scarcely be deemed to be free where the rights of property are left solely dependent on the will of the legislative body, without any restraint. The fundamental maxims of a free government seem to require that the rights of personal liberty and private property should be held sacred."
— Wilkinson v. Leland, 27 U.S. 627 (1829)
-"...A statute passed by a legislature for the purpose of depriving a citizen of his rights, which had vested anterior to its passage, would be void; and any law which divests rights vested by pre-existing laws must be void… That statute which would deprive a citizen of rights of person or property, without a regular trial according to the course and usage of the common law, would not be the law of the land."
— Hoke v. Henderson (1833)
-"The rights of life and personal liberty are natural rights of man. To secure these rights... is the primary duty of government, and not to impair them."
— Marr v. Enloe, 9 Yer. 489 (1836)
-"In this state, as in all republics, it is not the legislation, however transcendent its powers, who are supreme — but the people. To suppose that they may violate the fundamental law is to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that the men acting by virtue of delegated powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.".
— Warning v. Mayor of Savannah, 60 Ga. 93 (1868)
-"The State cannot diminish the rights of the people."
— Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516 (1884)
-"When we consider the nature and the theory of our institutions of government, the principles upon which they are supposed
to rest, and review the history of their development, we are constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave room for the play and action of purely personal and arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source of law; but, in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts.
And the law is the definition and limitation of power.It is, indeed, quite true that there must always be lodged somewhere, and in some person or body, the authority of final decision, and in many cases of mere administration, the responsibility is purely political, no appeal lying except to the ultimate tribunal of the public judgment, exercised either in the pressure of opinion or by means of the suffrage.But the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, considered as individual possessions, are secured by those maxims of constitutional law which are the monuments...For the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life at the mere will of another seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.
There are many illustrations that might be given of this truth, which would make manifest that it was self-evident in the light of our system of jurisprudence.
In reference to that right, it was declared by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in Capen v. Foster, 12 Pick. 485, 489, in the words of Chief Justice Shaw,
"that, in allcases where the constitution has conferred a political right or privilege, and where the constitution has not particularly designated the manner in which that right is to be exercised, it is clearly within the just and constitutional limits of the legislative power to adopt any reasonable and uniform regulations, in regard to the time and mode of exercising that right, which are designed to secure and facilitate the exercise of such right, in a prompt, orderly, and convenient manner;"
nevertheless, "such a construction would afford no warrant for such an exercise of legislative power as, under the pretence and color of regulating, should subvert or injuriously restrain the right itself."
Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886)
-Determination by the legislature of what constitutes proper exercise of police power is not final or conclusive, but is subject to supervision by the courts.
Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133, 152 U. S. 137. (1894)
-"Those who have the right to do something cannot be licensed for what they already have right to do, as such license would be meaningless."
— Bouvier's Law Dictionary (1914), p. 2961
-"A statutory provision which is not a legitimate police regulation cannot be made such by being placed in the same act with a police regulation, or by being enacted under a title that declares a purpose which would be a proper object for the exercise of that power.
It being self-evident that, unless all things are held in common, some persons must have more property than others,it is from the nature of things impossible to uphold freedom of contract and the right of private property without at the same time recognizing as legitimate those inequalities of fortune that are the necessary result of the exercise of those rights.The Fourteenth Amendment recognizes 'liberty' and 'property' as coexistent human rights, and debars the states from any unwarranted interference with either.Since a state may not strike down the rights of liberty or property directly, it may not do so indirectly…
— Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1 (1915)
-"The sovereign state has plenary control of streets and highways under its police power, andmay absolutely prohibit their use for private business gain.
They all recognize the fundamental distinction between the ordinary Right of the Citizen to use the streets in the usual way and the use of the streets as a place of business or as an instrumentality for private gain.
The former is a common Right; the latter is an extraordinary use. As to the former, legislative power is confined to regulation; as to the latter, it is plenary and extends even to absolute prohibition."
— Hadfield v. Lundin, 98 Wash. 516 (1917)
-...A distinction must be observed between the regulation of an activity which may be engaged in as a matter of right and one carried on by government sufferance or permission. In the latter case, the power to exclude altogether generally includes the lesser power to condition and may justify a degree of regulation not admissible in the former."
— Packard v. Banton, 264 U.S. 140 (1924)
-"The claim and exercise of a constitutional Right cannot be converted into a crime."
— Miller v. U.S., 230 F. 486 (1926)
-"The object of a license is to confer a right or power which does not exist without it."
— Blatz Brewing Co. v. Collins, 160 P.2d 37 (Cal. App. 1945)
-"An ordinance which makes the enjoyment of constitutional freedoms contingent upon the uncontrolled will of an official—as by requiring a permit or license at official discretion—is an unconstitutional prior restraint."
— Staub v. Baxley, 355 U.S. 313 (1958)
-"Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rulemaking or legislation which would abrogate them."
— Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
-"The government may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests'... For if the government could deny a benefit to a person because of his constitutionally protected speech or associations, his exercise of those freedoms would in effect be penalized and inhibited."
— Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 (1972)-
"It is a basic principle of due process that an enactment is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined. Vague laws offend several important values... [they] may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning."
— Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104 (1972)
-"There can be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of this exercise of Constitutional rights."
— Sherar v. Cullen, 481 F.2d 946 (9th Cir. 1973)
-Petitioners brought an action in the Federal District Court under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 )"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any State ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.")-claiming that Terrace Properties and Hale had conspired with the deputy sheriffs to unreasonably seize and remove their home in violation of their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.A "seizure" of property, we have explained, occurs when "there is some meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests in that property." United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109, 113 (1984). In addition, we have emphasized that "at the very core" of the Fourth Amendment "stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home." Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961). See also Oliver v. United States, 466 U. S. 170, 178179 (1984); Wyman v. James, 400 U. S. 309, 316 (1971); Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 601 (1980).they are entitled to ask us to affirm on that ground if such action would not enlarge the judgment of the Court of Appeals in their favor. The Court of Appeals found that because the police prevented Soldal from using reasonable force to protect his home from private action that the officers knew was illegal, there was sufficient evidence of conspiracy between the private parties and the officers to foreclose summary judgment for respondents.In our view, the reason why an officer might enter a house or effectuate a seizure is wholly irrelevant to the threshold question whether the Amendment applies. What matters is the intrusion on the people's security from governmental interference. Therefore, the right against unreasonable seizures would be no less transgressed if the seizure of the house was undertaken to collect evidence, verify compliance with a housing regulation, effect an eviction by the police, or on a whim, for no reason at all. As we have observed on more than one occasion, it would be "anomalous to say that the individual and his private property are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment only when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior." Camara, 387 U. S., at 530; see also O'Connor, 480 U. S., at 715; T. L. 0., 469 U. S., at 335.But we see no basis for doling out constitutional protections in such fashion. Certain wrongs affect more than a single right and, accordingly, can implicate more than one of the Constitution's commands. Where such multiple violations are alleged, we are not in the habit of identifying as a preliminary matter the claim's "dominant" character. Rather, we examine each constitutional provision in turn.held
(a) A "seizure" of property occurs when "there is some meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interests in that property." United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109, 113.
The language of the Fourth Amendment-which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures of "their persons, houses, papers, and effects"-cuts against the novel holding below, and this Court's cases unmistakably hold that the Amendment protects property even where privacy or liberty is not implicated. See, e. g., ibid.; Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347,350.This Court's "plain view" decisions also make untenable the lower court's construction of the Amendment.If the Amendment's boundaries were defined exclusively by rights of privacy, "plain view" seizures, rather than being scrupulously subjected to Fourth Amendment inquiry, Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U. S. 321,326-327, would not implicate that constitutional provision at all.Contrary to the Court of Appeals' position, the Amendment protects seizures even though no search within its meaning has taken place. See, e. g., Jacobsen, supra, at 120-125. Also contrary to that court's view, Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, does not require a court, when it finds that a wrong implicates more than one constitutional command, to look at the dominant character of the challenged conduct to determine under which constitutional standard it should be evaluated. Rather, each constitutional provision is examined in turn. See, e. g., Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517. pp. 61-71.(b) The instant decision should not foment a wave of new litigation in the federal courts. Activities such as repossessions or attachments, if they involve entering a home, intruding on individuals' privacy, or interfering with their liberty, would implicate the Fourth Amendment even on the Court of Appeals' own terms. And numerous seizures of this type will survive constitutional scrutiny on "reasonableness" grounds.Moreover, it is unlikely that the police will often choose to further an enterprise knowing that it is contrary to the law or proceed to seize property in the absence of objectively reasonable grounds for doing so. pp.71-72.-Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56 (1992)-
"The government may not require a person to give up a constitutional right—here the right to receive just compensation when property is taken for a public use—in exchange for a discretionary benefit conferred by the government where the benefit sought has little or no relationship to the property."
— Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, 570 U.S. 595 (2013)
-Young v. Hawaii (2021) — 9th Circuit: "Rights don't become second-class just because they are controversial."
Wrenn v. District of Columbia (2017) — DC Circuit: "The law made the Second Amendment a second-class right."
Heller v. District of Columbia (2016) — "Turning the Second Amendment into a second-class right."
NY State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (2022) — Supreme Court ruled lower courts cannot apply different constitutional tests for the Second Amendment than for other enumerated rights.