(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In 2015, the government of Hennepin County, Minnesota, seized an elderly black woman’s home after she couldn’t pay some $15,000 in taxes and interest accrued.
The government sold the widow, Geraldine Tyler’s, home for $40,000, but kept the balance instead of giving her the difference between the home’s worth and what Tyler owed.
Tyler has been fighting in the courts to recover her stolen assets ever since, and the U.S. Supreme Court heard her case last week.
Representing the U.S. government? Neal Katyal, an Obama-appointed former Deputy Solicitor General who the government hired from the private sector to represent its case.
Revolver News noted the irony that Katyal, an anti-Trump “resistance” hero to the Left, is arguing for the theft of a 94-year-old black woman’s home.
“It’s almost too perfect … Katyal is the legal eagle who the Democrats chose to defend the Voting Rights Act and the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court. Katyal was also commissioned by Bill Clinton for a report calling for an increase in pro bono legal work. Besides that, Katyal criticized World War II-era Japanese internment camps on behalf of the Obama administration, and was highly critical of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay,” Revolver said.
“The new liberal left now defends stealing homes from tiny, helpless 94-year-old black women. What a comedown.”
Luckily, an overwhelming number of organizations from all ideological stripes have stepped up to defend Tyler.
Americans For Prosperity, the Chamber of Commerce, the ACLU and the National Association for Realtors were in support of the private citizen.
“These seizures often target poorer communities—and often the elderly within those communities—who own their homes but have insufficient disposable income to pay their taxes,” the ACLU stated in its amicus brief.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing Geraldine Tyler, termed it “home equity theft.”
According to Reason legal analyst Ilya Somin, last week’s SCOTUS hearing seemed to favor Tyler.
“The bottom line takeaway from the oral argument is that Tyler will almost certainly win her case, and it isn’t going to be close … By my count, at least eight justices seem to be leaning Tyler’s way,” Somin said.
“In my last post about Tyler, I noted the unusually broad cross-ideological support for the property owner’s position among the organizations filing amicus briefs in the case. If the oral argument is any indication, a similar broad consensus may be emerging among the Supreme Court justices, as well.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
