Stephen Maturin

German Evangelical Lutheran Church v. City of Charleston

By a 4-to-1 vote, the Supreme Court of South Carolina held yesterday that a city may properly impose special assessments for street paving, landscaping, utility improvements, etc. upon church-owned real property that's exempt from ad valorem taxation. The primary issue was whether a particular South Carolina statute authorized the assessment, and it doesn't appear that the church raised any First Amendment challenges to the city's actions. However, the Court did reject Due Process and Equal Protection challenges.

On an editorial note, the opinions in German Evangelical are models of clarity and brevity that other courts would do well to emulate. In the vast majority of cases, it's neither necessary nor desireable to cite the Code of Hammurabi and then discuss in nauseating detail every goddamned historical development from then 'til now (though to read U.S. Supreme Court cases you'd think that's the only way to write an opinion ).

Shake

Street paving? That's good! King Street, where that church sits, is in horrible condition in many parts!

Oh, and as for your editorial comment, that's to keep some lawyers with jobs. If they wrote them more plainly, well then even the journalists would be able to tell us what they meant, rather than having to consult a 'legal expert' who would tell us what the judges were saying.

Stephen Maturin

You're way too kind, Shake. The blow-dried talking heads that pass for journalists these days require slow, patient, spoon-fed explanations, complete with visual aids, for anything more complex than "See Spot jump." Television journalism is kind of a privately funded welfare system for dumbasses.

The "legal experts" you see on TV can be damned near as funny as the journalists. With a few noteworthy exceptions, I get the distinct impression that the mere thought of actually trying a case would reduce those folks to a state of gibbering incontinence. Bush v. Gore was undoubtedly one of the five worst decisions in Supreme Court history, but it did provide at least one magnificently entertaining moment when the legal experts hired by the network I was watching when the decision came down soundlessly moved their lips while attempting to figure out how the Court had ruled.