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City of Grants Pass v. Johnson

Supreme Court of the United States
603 U.S. 520 (2024)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

The Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits specific methods of punishment but does not limit the government's power to criminalize the act of camping on public property, even when applied to homeless individuals who lack alternative shelter.


Facts:

  • The City of Grants Pass, Oregon, has a population of approximately 38,000, including an estimated 600 individuals experiencing homelessness.
  • The City maintained ordinances prohibiting camping on public property, defining 'campsite' broadly to include any place where bedding or sleeping bags are used for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live.
  • Additional ordinances prohibited sleeping on public sidewalks, streets, or alleys, and banned overnight parking in city parks.
  • Violations of these ordinances resulted in escalating penalties: initial fines starting at $295, exclusion orders banning repeat offenders from city parks for 30 days, and potential criminal trespass charges punishable by up to 30 days in jail for violating exclusion orders.
  • The City had a shortage of 'practically available' shelter beds, meaning there were fewer beds than homeless individuals, and existing shelters had restrictions such as religious requirements or bans on smoking.
  • Gloria Johnson and John Logan were involuntarily homeless individuals living in Grants Pass who lived in their vehicles or on the streets because they could not access the limited shelter options.
  • Because of the discrepancy between the homeless population and available beds, homeless individuals faced civil and criminal penalties for the act of sleeping in public with basic protection against the elements.

Procedural Posture:

  • Plaintiffs filed a putative class action lawsuit against the City of Grants Pass in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.
  • The District Court certified the class and entered an injunction prohibiting Grants Pass from enforcing its anti-camping laws against homeless individuals.
  • The City appealed the injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
  • A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court's injunction in relevant part, applying its own precedent from Martin v. Boise.
  • The Ninth Circuit denied the City's petition for rehearing en banc.
  • The City filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Issue:

Does the enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property against homeless individuals who lack access to shelter constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment?


Opinions:

Majority - Justice Gorsuch

No, the Eighth Amendment does not bar the enforcement of public camping ordinances against homeless individuals. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause is directed at the 'method or kind of punishment' a government imposes (such as drawing and quartering), not at the substantive question of what behavior a government may criminalize. The Court distinguished the present case from Robinson v. California (1962), which struck down a law criminalizing the 'status' of being a drug addict. Grants Pass ordinances punish the 'act' of camping, not the 'status' of being homeless, as the laws apply generally to everyone including backpackers or protesters. Relying on Powell v. Texas (1968), the Court refused to extend Eighth Amendment protection to 'involuntary' acts committed due to a status. The Court emphasized that homelessness is a complex social policy issue better addressed by democratic legislative processes than by federal judges managing shelter-bed math.


Concurring - Justice Thomas

Yes, the majority is correct, but the precedent of Robinson v. California was wrongly decided and should be reconsidered. The Eighth Amendment's text and history show it applies only to the penalty imposed for a crime, not the definition of the crime itself. Furthermore, it is doubtful the Clause applies to the civil fines and exclusion orders at issue here, as they are not strictly criminal punishments.


Dissenting - Justice Sotomayor

Yes, punishing homeless individuals for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go violates the Eighth Amendment. Sleep is a biological necessity, and for those without shelter, sleeping in public is unavoidable. By criminalizing the act of sleeping in public—an act inseparable from the status of homelessness when no shelter exists—the City is effectively punishing the status of being homeless, which Robinson prohibits. The dissent argued that the majority's decision leaves the most vulnerable members of society with an impossible choice: 'Either stay awake or be arrested.'



Analysis:

This decision effectively overturns the Ninth Circuit's Martin v. Boise precedent, which had barred Western states from enforcing anti-camping laws unless they had sufficient shelter beds. The ruling creates a strict distinction between 'status' (which cannot be criminalized) and 'conduct' (which can be, even if involuntary), significantly limiting the scope of the Eighth Amendment regarding substantive criminal law. It returns broad power to local governments to manage homelessness through police powers without federal constitutional interference. The decision implies that solutions to homelessness must be political and legislative rather than judicial.

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