Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

November 27, 2007

?Thieves for their robbery have authority when judges steal themselves.?

This mordant observation by Shakespeare is brought to mind by the case of Richard McLean, a retired judge and former mayor of Boulder, Colorado, who used an obscure legal principle called ?adverse possession? to steal a tract of property from his neighbors.

The neighbors, Don and Susie Kirlin, bought the land in 1984 and planned to use it to build a retirement home. But McLean and his wife, attorney Edith Stevens, persuaded a friendly district judge that they had taken ?adverse possession? of the property through decades of trespassing.

Adverse possession is a thoroughly dubious doctrine intended to encourage settlement of thinly populated areas. It also helps clear up disputes involving ambiguous property lines, easements, and similar matters. But as the Denver Post discovered, invoking that doctrine has become a useful tactic for judges to seize coveted properties from their neighbors.

As one of McLean's critics points out, this is ?stealing with a law license instead of a gun.?

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.