overturned two decisions from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granting significant protections to homeless people from punishment for sleeping outdoors onThe decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson will make it easier for states and cities to ban homeless people from sleeping outdoors with as little as a blanket while punishing them with civil fines and criminal sanctions, including jail time.
The Supreme Court, however, overturned these decisions, arguing that the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment should not be extended to cover laws limiting outdoor sleeping by homeless people.authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court ruled that “generally applicable” laws like those against camping could not qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.“Grants Pass’s public-camping ordinances do not criminalize status.
had relied on the Supreme Court’s 1962 decision in Robinson v. California that found California’s ban on being a drug addict as cruel and unusual punishment as it amounted to a status-based punishment that made it impossible to exist legally as a person in the state.