Throughout more than two hours of arguments, the court's three liberal justices were the most skeptical of a law passed by the city of Grants Pass that proposed criminalizing the most basic human needs.
Justice Elena Kagan told the city's lawyers that the city's law goes far beyond the need to remove encampments from public places. “Sleep is a biological necessity,” Kagan says. “Sleeping in public is like breathing in public.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked where people should sleep in a city that lacks enough evacuation beds.
But several conservative justices in the court's majority suggested that policymakers, not judges, should set local rules for dealing with homeless people.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked Biden administration lawyers why “these nine people” were qualified to “review policy decisions.”
The Supreme Court heard from an unlikely coalition across the political spectrum, including liberal leaders like California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and officials from Republican-led states like Montana and Alabama. After hearing the plea, it agreed to intervene in the case. Their legal brief says the government is overwhelmed by the severity of the problem. More than 600,000 people are homeless across the United States, and nearly half sleep outdoors, according to federal data.
The case began in Grants Pass, Oregon, as officials began cracking down on a series of measures that ban sleeping and camping in public spaces such as parks and parked cars and impose fines ranging from $75 to $295. Began. If unpaid, fines can increase significantly and ultimately lead to jail time and a park ban.
Three homeless people, Debra Blake, Gloria Johnson, and John Logan, sued Grants in 2018, accusing the city of 40,000 people of unconstitutionally punishing them “based on their status as involuntarily homeless.” Appealed for a pass. They cited the Eighth Amendment's protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
Officially there is Grants Pass has more than 600 unhoused residents and another 1,000 live in the suburbs, but at least twice that many people are homeless, according to local service providers. There are no homeless shelters in Grants Pass. The only major transitional housing program, Gospel Rescue Mission, is a 138-bed, privately run religious facility with strict requirements for residents, including regular church attendance and no drugs or romantic relationships. We are prepared.
In 2020, a district court judge sided with people who had lost their homes behind a lawsuit, allowing the city to enforce an anti-camping ban in parks at night if there is no other available shelter. Forbidden. Judge Mark D. Clark told the city there were other options to prevent the encampment without violating the Eighth Amendment.
“Let's remember that homeless people are citizens, just like those lucky enough to have a safe place to live,” Clark wrote.
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Western states including Oregon, California and Washington, upheld the ruling in 2022. The closely divided Ninth Circuit declined to rehear the case before the full jury. In a sharp dissent, the justices warned of “dire real consequences” for hundreds of cities and millions of people.
Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, along with 14 of his colleagues, wrote that a related 2019 Ninth Circuit ruling and an expanded version of the Grants Pass case “paralyzed communities from addressing the pressing problem of homelessness and that the federal government “They are in control of the policy-making authority prescribed by the system.” Leave it to the democratic process. ”
As a result of the Ninth Circuit's ruling, Grants Pass attorneys told the Supreme Court that restrictions on public camping no longer serve as a significant deterrent, leading to unchecked growth in encampments across the West. , said violent crimes, drug overdoses and drug overdoses are spiking. Disease, fire, hazardous waste.
“The homelessness crisis is a significant challenge for communities large and small across the country,” the city's legal team, led by attorney Thean D. Evangelis, told the court ahead of Monday's arguments. “The solution is not to stretch the Eighth Amendment beyond its limits and put federal courts in charge of this pressing social problem.”
In response, attorneys for homeless people say state and local officials are restricting tents in public spaces, removing encampments, and fining homeless people who deny other shelter options. He said he still has the freedom to do things. But they argued the city can't punish people who don't have an alternative.
“Punishing homeless people who rest and sleep outside whenever and wherever they can, when they cannot access shelter and need a blanket to survive, is not a punishment for an ‘act’ in any sense of the word. It is similar to punishing “acts”. “Being homeless and breathing outside,” the defense team, led by attorneys Kelsi Cochran and Edward Johnson, told the judges before the court filing.
The Biden administration has charted a middle path. In her court filing, Attorney General Elizabeth B. Preloger agreed with her opinion that anti-camping laws targeting people without access to shelter are unconstitutional.
But Preloger asked the judge to send the case back to a lower court to avoid blocking the city's law altogether. She argued that such a ban should still be permissible if the investigation shows that certain people do in fact have access to the shelter.
Both sides of the incident known as City of Grants Pass vs. Gloria Johnson cited decades-old Supreme Court decisions to support their contradictory claims. The Biden administration and homeless officials said the Ninth Circuit's decision invalidated a 1962 California law that criminalized drug addiction and ruled that the government could not criminally punish people for their involuntary status. He said it was consistent with the High Court's ruling.
“Just as California crossed a constitutional line when it made it a crime to be in the state with a drug addiction, it is cruel to punish homeless people in their communities without access to shelter.” This is abnormal and unacceptable,” lawyers for the homeless said in court. .
Grants Pass attorneys said the same ruling draws a line between permissible punishment for an act and unconstitutional punishment that targets an individual's status. They say local laws protect public safety and health and cover encampment expansion.
They asked the judge to overturn the Ninth Circuit's ruling. The ruling “takes social policy issues away from elected officials, creating a paralysis that harms both the people living in the encampments and the general public.”
