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Supreme Court says Grants Pass camping, sleeping bans do not trigger Eighth Amendment in 6–3 ruling, podcast analysts say
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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 therefore applied the Powell v. Texas framework rather than Robinson v. California.
Why it matters: the Ninth Circuit had relied on Martin v. City of Boise (2018), which found criminal penalties unconstitutional where people had no available shelter and thus no choice but to sleep outside. The Supreme Court’s majority rejected that Eighth Amendment theory for Grants Pass, emphasizing that the ordinances are facially applicable to a range of conduct and that determinations about criminalization may better fit due-process analysis.
Details: Evan Lee, an emeritus law professor, summarized the ordinances at issue: a prohibition on sleeping on public sidewalks, streets or alleys; a ban on camping and overnight parking in city parks; and a broadly worded prohibition on camping on public property that defined a campsite to include placement of bedding or other sleeping materials. The ordinances carried civil fines, possible exclusion orders and up to 30 days in jail.
Dissent and limits: Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, argued the Ninth Circuit and the Martin injunction applied only to people who truly had no alternative place to sleep and warned that criminalization of homelessness can produce cascading harms. Sotomayor emphasized the majority’s ruling is limited to the Eighth Amendment and leaves open challenges under the Due Process Clause, the excessive-fines clause, and state law; the transcript notes she referenced a figure of about 600,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night.
Implications for lower courts: Laurie Levinson told listeners the ruling signals that lower courts may see more litigation framed under due process or state law rather than under the Eighth Amendment. She also noted that individual defendants may still assert defenses such as necessity in particular prosecutions.
The Federal Judicial Center’s Term Talk podcast hosted the discussion. The Court’s decision does not foreclose further constitutional or statutory challenges and leaves significant questions to lower courts and state legislatures.
