LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that cities can punish unhoused people for sleeping in public, even if they have nowhere else to go. This decision goes against longstanding Supreme Court precedent that it is cruel and unusual to criminalize a person’s status.
The case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, originated from an Oregon city that passed ordinances barring people from sleeping outside in public using a blanket, pillow, or even a cardboard sheet to lie on. In Grants Pass, Oregon, unhoused people could be saddled with hundreds of dollars in fines and even jail time for sleeping outside, even though the city lacked enough shelter beds.
“Everyone in California deserves a safe, dignified place to live,” said Kath Rogers, staff attorney at ACLU Foundation of Southern California. “This Supreme Court ruling continues the shameful tradition of choosing to remove unhoused people from public view rather than provide our community members with what they actually need: affordable housing.”
The American Civil Liberties Union submitted a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that punishing unhoused people for sleeping outside when they lack access to shelter violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. As the brief highlights, the original intent and meaning of the Eighth Amendment and its application in more than a century of Supreme Court cases make clear that the government cannot impose punishment that is disproportionate to the crime.
"It is hard to imagine a starker example of excessive punishment than fining and jailing a person for the basic human act of sleeping,” said Scout Katovich, staff attorney at the ACLU Trone Center for Justice and Equality. “The Supreme Court has effectively criminalized the existence of unhoused people, stripping them of the human dignity that we all deserve. We cannot arrest our way out of homelessness, and we will continue litigating against cities that are emboldened by this decision to treat unhoused people as criminals.”
The brief goes on to argue that Robinson v. California, which ruled that criminalizing a person’s status is cruel and unusual punishment and was relied upon by the lower courts in Johnson v. Grants Pass, is consistent with this proportionality principle. Applying the same proportionality principle, the brief stated, punishing unhoused people for sleeping in public when they have no other choice violates the Eighth Amendment.
The court’s decision reverses a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that punishing unhoused people for sleeping in public when they have no access to shelter violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.