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From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Homelessness case at Supreme Court
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2024 18:45:30 -0000 (UTC)
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City of Grants Pass, Oregon, v. Gloria Johnson, et al. has been set for
argument before the United States Supreme Court on Monday, April 22, 2024.

To prevent the homeless from living in a public park, they passed an
ordinance to ban this enforced with civil penalties.

In an earlier case from another city, the Ninth Circuit held that such
ordinances violated the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the
Eighth Amendment unless the person has "access to temporary shelter."
When a broad injunction against such ordinances generally was obtained,
that affected this city. This set up the circuit split as the California
Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit have upheld similar ordinances. The
issue is whether the Clause applies to purportedly involuntary conduct.

This is well beyond my legal knowledge. Have there been cases in other
areas in which the Clause was applied to civil penalties that I am
unaware of? I really thought the clause was criminal only.

The docket
https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-175.html

Articles
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-homelessness-encampment-sweeps-cities-92ee954dfe2e32d892e9a73e25f16ae3
https://apnews.com/article/grants-pass-oregon-supreme-court-homeless-encampments-a8dcddb518bd76b11d409666c06701b8