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The Takings Clause (unlike, for instance, the Ex Post Facto Clauses, see Art. I, § 9, cl. 3; § 10, cl. 1) is not addressed to the action of a specific branch or branches. It is concerned simply with the act, and not with the governmental actor ('nor shall private property be taken' (emphasis added)). There is no textual justification for saying that the existence or the scope of a State's power to expropriate private property without just compensation varies according to the branch of government effecting the expropriation. Nor does common sense recommend such a principle. It would be absurd to allow a State to do by judicial decree what the Takings Clause forbids it to do by legislative fiat. See Stevens v. Cannon Beach, 510 U.S. 1207, 1211-1212, 114 S.Ct. 1332, 127 L.Ed.2d 679 (1994) (SCALIA, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). Our precedents provide no support for the proposition that takings effected by the judicial branch are entitled to special treatment, and in fact suggest the contrary. The Takings Clause bars the State from taking private property without paying for it, no matter which branch is the instrument of the taking.
