In 1973, federal narcotics agents raided a pair of homes in Collinsville, Illinois by mistake. They didn’t find any drugs, but they did terrorize two innocent families. The incident sparked nationwide outrage, and in response Congress passed legislation crafting a legal remedy for victims of federal law enforcement abuses. Over the years, however, lower courts have chipped away at the law to the point where it has essentially been repealed: Last year, a federal appeals court rejected claims from an innocent family, the Martin family, who were held at gunpoint after the FBI mistakenly raided their home in Atlanta. Fortunately, next week, on April 29, 2025, the Supreme Court will hold oral argument in Martin v. United States, and IJ will urge the justices to reverse course.  

On this episode, we explore the Federal Tort Claims Act, which was originally enacted in 1946 and then amended in 1974, to create a remedy for wrongful acts by government officials. We feature guests who worked on getting the 1974 amendment, called the law-enforcement proviso, passed into law.

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Martin v. United States (Eleventh Circuit opinion)

Government officials must obtain a warrant before forcibly entering a home (absent consent or an emergency). That rule goes back to the Founding. But in a series of cases, culminating in Camara v. San Francisco in 1967, the Supreme Court announced an ahistorical exception, holding that the Fourth Amendment is less protective when it is a health inspector, rather than a police officer, knocking at the door.

On this episode, we hear from Marshall Krause, who argued Camara on behalf of the ACLU of Northern California. And we head to Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where a challenge to the borough’s rental inspection program lays bare the cost of ignoring traditional limits on government power.

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Frank v. Maryland

Camara v. San Francisco

In 2020, a police SWAT team blew up Vicki Baker’s house after a fugitive barricaded himself inside. On this episode, we ask: who pays the tab when the government damages or destroys private property for the public good — the unlucky owner or the public as a whole?

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Pumpelly v. Green Bay & Mississippi Canal Company

Armstrong v. United States

Civil forfeiture is a civil rights nightmare, allowing police and prosecutors to seize billions of dollars’ worth of property annually—cash, cars, houses, bank accounts, and more—without charging anyone with a crime, let alone obtaining a conviction. On this episode, we trace the rise of the modern forfeiture regime in the 1970s and 80s, and we look at forfeiture’s historic roots.

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Miller v. United States

The Palmyra

Bennis v. Michigan

In 2005, in the case of Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court allowed officials to seize and raze an entire neighborhood of well-maintained homes and businesses in the hopes that someone else could build fancier homes and businesses. According to the dissenters, the majority’s opinion effectively deleted the provision of the U.S. Constitution requiring that takings be for a “public use.” On this episode, we ask: what, if anything, is left of the prohibition on using eminent domain to take property from Person A merely to give it to Person B? And we look at some current litigation that can restore traditional limits on the government’s power of eminent domain.

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Kelo v. New London

Hawai’i Housing Authority v. Midkiff

On this episode: Berman v. Parker, the Supreme Court’s decision in 1954 to abandon previous constitutional limits on the government’s power to take property from Person A to give it to Person B. The decision greenlit the era of urban renewal, which saw over a thousand cities across the country seize and bulldoze entire neighborhoods en masse.

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Berman v. Parker

Schneider v. D.C.

On this episode, we take a break from case law and go way back to the beginning to examine the origins and justifications of private property.

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Tyler v. Hennepin County

On this episode we return to the subject of zoning. With the doors to federal courthouses barred shut, advocates for reforming zoning have turned to state courts and state constitutions. Most famously, in 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court took a look at a zoning ordinance that made it illegal to build low- and moderate-income housing in the township of Mount Laurel and said in no uncertain terms: enough. But the story of the Mount Laurel doctrine, which calls for municipalities to do their fair share to meet the regional demand for affordable housing, is not all milk and honey. Additionally, we take a look at some current efforts in other states to protect property rights under state constitutions.

Click here for Open Fields Conference

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Mount Laurel I (1975) and Mount Laurel II (1983)

Warth v. Seldin

Belle Terre v. Boraas

In 1926, in the case of Euclid v. Ambler, the Supreme Court upheld zoning, giving elected officials and city planners vast, new, and largely unchecked power to tell people what they can and cannot do with their own private property. On this episode: the story of the lawsuit that changed everything for American property rights plus the personalities who made it happen.

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Euclid v. Ambler (Supreme Court opinion)

Ambler v. Euclid (district court opinion)

Nectow v. Cambridge