Supreme Court to decide if ticketing people who are homeless is 'cruel' punishment

John Fritze and Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY
Updated ·2 min read
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WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether cities may ticket people who are homeless and sleeping on public property, or whether that is a cruel and unusual punishment that violates the Constitution.

A city in southern Oregon told the Supreme Court that being barred from ticketing homeless people has created a dire situation around makeshift encampments, and has hamstrung it when dealing with crime, fires and "the reemergence of medieval diseases." The Oregon city filed an appeal last year of a lower court ruling on this issue.

“The tragedy is that these decisions are actually harming the very people they purport to protect,” said Theane Evangelis, who represents Grants Pass, Oregon.

Ed Johnson, an attorney at the Oregon Law Center representing the other side, said the case is not about a city’s ability to regulate or prohibit encampments.

“Nevertheless, some politicians and others are cynically and falsely blaming the judiciary for the homelessness crisis to distract the public and deflect blame for years of failed policies,” Johnson said.

The question of whether people without homes can be punished under laws designed to regulate public camping and sleeping outside has been percolating in federal courts for years as several states and cities grapple with burgeoning homelessness. The Supreme Court declined to consider a similar case in 2019 after an appeals court in California ruled that homeless Americans could not face criminal prosecution.

At issue in the latest case is a ruling from that same court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, that held cities could also not issue tickets to homeless people who were using blankets, pillows or means to protect themselves from the elements. The court noted that the city handed out dozens of citations each year, sometimes with fines that reached several hundred dollars.

Calling the case the most significant Supreme Court involvement in the rights of homeless people in decades, the National Homelessness Law Center said the court’s ruling will have a big impact on the 250,000 people who sleep outside on a given night.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court to decide if ticketing homeless people is constitutional