466

The Supreme Court Is on the Verge of Criminalizing Homelessness (newrepublic.com)

submitted 6 months ago by gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

80 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As more people end up experiencing homelessness, they’re also facing increasingly punitive and reactionary responses from local governments and their neighbors. Such policies could become legally codified in short order, with the high court having agreed to hear arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson.

Originally brought in 2018, the case challenged the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, over an ordinance banning camping. Both a federal judge and, later, a panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck the law down, saying that Grants Pass did not have enough available shelter to offer homeless people. As such, the law was deemed to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The ruling backed up the Ninth Circuit’s earlier ruling on the Martin v. City of Boise case, which said that punishing or arresting people for camping in public when there are no available shelter beds to take them to instead constituted a violation of the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause in the Eighth Amendment. That applied to localities in the Ninth Circuit’s area of concern and has led to greater legal scrutiny even as cities and counties push for more punitive and restrictive anti-camping laws. In fact, Grants Pass pushed to get the Supreme Court to hear the case, and several nominally liberal cities and states on the West Coast are backing its argument. If the Supreme Court overturns the previous Grants Pass and Boise rulings, it would open the door for cities, states, and counties to essentially criminalize being unhoused on a massive scale.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240223125412/https://newrepublic.com/article/178678/supreme-court-criminalize-homeless-case

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago

While I broadly agree with the sentiment of your post, three strikes laws usually only apply to felonies, and criminalized homelessness is typically misdemeanor stuff. Not a defense of three strike laws, they're fucking garbage, but the truth matters.

[-] toast@retrolemmy.com 15 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

And while I broadly agree with your point, it is far too easy for law enforcement to tack on additional charges like resisting arrest. And, yes, in most states resisting arrest is also a misdemeanor, but incidents can be raised to felony resisting arrest if they involve assault on an officer. Unfortunately, it is easy for any innocent physical contact with police to be interpreted as assault, if an officer decides to portray it that way. The truth matters, but so does ACAB

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

How many times do you let yourself be arrested non violently, knowing all of your stuff and money is going to be gone before you get back?

And by non violently we mean doing exactly what the cops say, when they say, no questions asked, mid conversation after they've declared they're arresting you. And hoping they don't beat you up and charge you anyways for annoying them or imagined disrespect.

Putting anyone in adverse contact with police routinely is creating a pathway to being a felon.

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

You're correct, of course. All I'm saying is that the anti-homeless laws don't directly apply to three strikes laws. What you're pointing out is a feature of all law enforcement contacts, though, including traffic enforcement. Vehicle codes are sprawling and that's by design, it gives law enforcement nearly carte blanche to initiate a contact first and come up with a justification afterwards. And, of course, each traffic stop for "your windows look tinted" is a potential pathway to a felony. That is, the felony potential stemming from police contacts isn't unique to homeless laws, it applies to virtually every petty contact police make.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's indirect in the same way that court fees and orders to pay private debts are an indirect way to create debtor's jails. They left a written step out but it is understood to be there by everyone involved in the system.

this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024

466 points (98.9% liked)

politics

18883 readers

3695 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News