FILE – Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks with retired U.S. Appeals Court Judge Thomas Griffith, not shown, during a panel discussion at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association, Feb. 23, 2024 in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
The United States Supreme Court ruled Friday that “camping bans” criminalizing the use of blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes while sleeping on public property do not offend the Eighth Amendment’s restriction on cruel and unusual punishment.
The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines and Justice Neil Gorsuch penned the opinion on behalf of the conservative majority. The decision is a reversal of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision, which sided with those challenging the ordinance.
Like many cities throughout the country, the city of Grants Pass, Oregon has a “camping ban.” Grants Pass has a population of approximately 38,000 people, with a daily average of about 600 people experiencing homelessness. A city ordinance bars the use of blankets, pillows, and cardboard boxes while sleeping within the city on public property and imposes a fine of $295 for violations with related nonpayment penalties including a fine of $1,250 and 30 days in jail.
Relevant to the issue of the ordinance’s legality is the 1962 Supreme Court ruling in Robinson v. California, in which the Court held that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment makes it illegal to criminalize the status of being a drug addict. Challengers to the Grants Pass ordinance argued that it similarly aimed to criminalize a person’s status.
The litigants did not challenge other restrictions such as prohibitions on tents or other camping gear.
