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Supreme Court says Grants Pass camping, sleeping bans do not trigger Eighth Amendment in 6–3 ruling, podcast analysts say
Summary
On the Term Talk podcast, FJC analysts said the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit 6–3, holding Grants Pass’s anti-camping and anti-sleeping ordinances do not, as written, violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment; the decision leaves open due-process and state-law challenges.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit in a 6–3 decision and held that Grants Pass, Oregon’s ordinances banning sleeping on sidewalks and camping on public property do not, by themselves, violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, panelists said on the Federal Judicial Center’s Term Talk podcast.
“This is not a status case. This is conduct,” said Laurie Levinson, a law professor and chair in ethical advocacy at Loyola Law School, summarizing the Court’s approach in the majority opinion. The Court treated the ordinances as regulating the act of sleeping or camping in public rather than criminalizing a person’s status as unhoused and…
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