Summary
Petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision of the Ninth Circuit blocking a city from enforcing an ordinance against camping on public property.
In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided in Martin v. City of Boise that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment prevents a city from enforcing a prohibition on camping on public property whenever the number of shelter beds in a city is less than the number of homeless people. This simplistic holding overlooks the complex nature of the homelessness problem and removes an important tool for getting addicted homeless persons into the treatment needed to turn their lives around. The problem of encampments in cities has only grown worse in the years since Martin.
CJLF initially filed a brief to support the city's petition to take the case up for full briefing and argument. The Supreme Court granted that petition. We then filed another brief to argue for reversing the Ninth Circuit's decision. We argue that the Ninth Circuit has seriously misinterpreted the Eighth Amendment, extending a dubious old Supreme Court precedent to new territory completed outside the proper scope of that amendment. The Ninth Circuit's decision is bad constitutional law and interferes with the cities' efforts to deal effectively with a difficult problem.
The Supreme Court agreed. The Eighth Amendment has nothing to do with this issue. Local governments can address the homelessness problem with appropriate regard for other constitutional rights but without the crude, high-handed obstruction of the injunctions issued under Martin.
