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Upholding due process.

Article Excerpt
In Jones v. Flowers, the Supreme Court held that the government must give people advance warning that it is going to sell their property because of unpaid taxes. (1) This is an important ruling about the requirements of due process, and it reaffirms the government's duty to provide meaningful notice before depriving people of their property.

The specific issue the Court considered was whether a notice of tax sale, mailed to the property owner but returned undelivered, is due process, or whether the government must take additional steps to provide notice.

The split in voting among the justices also makes the case interesting. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas dissented. Justice Samuel Alito did not participate because the case was argued before he joined the Court. This is the first split decision where Roberts joined the more "liberal" justices rather than Scalia and Thomas. (2)

In 1967, Gary Jones bought a house in Little Rock, Arkansas. For 30 years, he paid the mortgage each month, and the mortgage company paid his property taxes. The property was paid off in 1997, and after that, the taxes went unpaid and the property was certified as delinquent. Jones lived in the house only until 1993, when he...

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