In a case likely to have broad ramifications throughout the West, the court found an Oregon city’s penalties did not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
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A case dealing with homelessness stems from a series of local ordinances in Grants Pass, a town of about 40,000 in southern Oregon.
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld an Oregon city’s laws aimed at banning homeless residents from sleeping outdoors, saying they did not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
The decision is likely to reverberate beyond Oregon, altering how cities and states in the West police homelessness.
The ruling, by a 6-to-3 vote, split along ideological lines, with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch writing for the majority. The laws, enacted in Grants Pass, Ore., penalize sleeping and camping in public places, including sidewalks, streets and city parks.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote that the decision would leave society’s most vulnerable with fewer protections.
She added that the laws, which impose fines and potential jail time for people “sleeping anywhere in public at any time, including in their cars, if they use as little as a blanket to keep warm or a rolled-up shirt as a pillow,” punished people for being homeless.
“That is unconscionable and unconstitutional,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. She read her dissent from the bench, a rare move that signals profound disagreement.
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Source: nytimes.com
