The US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment is supposed to prevent the government from taking private property without Due Process. If the government wants to take property, like real estate, it is supposed to show a compelling reason for the taking or, at a minimum, rational relation to a government purpose. In reality government doesn’t need a reason, just an excuse.  

Asset forfeiture has long been abused by the government. From local government to the big boys in DC, government goons can take private property and have pocketed billions. A fair amount of property seized has no connection to any crime. You, citizen, need to prove that it didn’t. In 20 years, the government has pocketed over $68 Billion. 

READ MORE: 

Skinny on SCOTUS - 5/9/24 Edition - Forfeiture and Copyright

In October 2020, local police raided Cristal Starling’s home. Her boyfriend was accused of dealing drugs. Cops got a warrant and raided Starling’s apartment. What they seized was $8,040 in cash that Cristal was going to use to buy a food truck. Under the civil asset forfeiture law, they didn’t have to give it back or provide a link to the boyfriend or drug dealing. It was clear that the money was her money. The boyfriend? He was acquitted. Did the government return her money after the acquittal? Nope. She missed a single deadline. She couldn’t afford a lawyer. The government had all her cash. 

Eminent Domain laws are also frequently abused by governments. Governments will take property and feign justification for the taking. In Kelo v New London, the city of New London condemned Suzette Kelo’s home. The justification was that her home and the homes of her neighbors stood in the way of private development that would revitalize the area. The case went to the US Supreme Court. In a 5-4 opinion that saw Justice Kennedy siding with the majority of liberals, the court said the Constitution allowed for only “rational relation” to government purpose. So, Kelo lost her home. Kelo’s property was never developed, by the way. The developer abandoned the project. 

Another way the government can “take” property without doing anything with it is by declaring it a “landmark,” a monument, or a historic location, thus preventing an owner from developing it. Such is the case with Marilyn Monroe’s death-house. 

In 1962, Marilyn Monroe purchased a home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, California, for $27,000. On August 10, 1962, Marilyn Monroe took a boatload of downers and died in her bed. According to rumors (and Elton John), “She died in the nude.” Monroe’s body was removed from the bedroom. After her death, her estate sold the property. It was remodeled, sold again, remodeled, and sold again. Post-Monroe, there have been 14 owners pulling 12 construction permits in the 60 years since Monroe was wheeled out on a coroner’s gurney. 

The next-door neighbors recently bought 12305 Fifth Helena Drive and planned to raze the house. They pulled the requisite permits. Not so fast. An LA City Councilwoman named Traci Park showed up to grandstand at the council. She appeared in red lipstick and donned a Marilyn Monroe look-alike hairdo. She then announced that she was moving to declare the property a historic landmark. Why? Because she got emails asking her to do so. What is historic about the property, other than it’s the physical location where Monroe popped her last pill? Nothing. The property has been remodeled so many times there is little left that Monroe would recognize other than the building footprint.

According to the lawsuit:

“There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing”.

The owners have sued for the right to use their property as they want. 

The house isn’t even viewable from the street. All an occasional gawker or Monroe stalker can see is a second-story window – but not the room where she perished. 

The owners have said:

“In the eight years that we have lived next door, we have seen the property change owners two times,” Milstein said while addressing the commission. “We have watched it go unmaintained and unkempt. We purchased the property because it is within feet of ours. And it is not a historic cultural monument.”

The LA Times quoted a “Parisian” art historian named Jacques Le Roux. Jacques declared it a “landmark. He said:

“Destroying the only place she owned while alive, and where her transition into a sacred figure started would be a shame, [an] irreparable error, an ignorant act against culture and history.”

It’s a house, Jac. Wood and drywall, paint and carpet. Monroe owned it for a few months, likely spent a few dozy days in it, mostly in bed, and died in a back bedroom popping pills. The bed is gone. The pills are gone. It’s not Appomattox Court House or Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. 

Our government(s) should be for the people by the people, not for cosplaying councilmembers dressing as Marilyn Monroe so they can take someone’s private property rights. 

Editor's Note: This article was updated post-publication to correct the spelling of Marilyn Monroe's name. Apologies. Send caffeine.