Do the Homeless Have the Right to Fall Asleep?
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the city’s ordinances were foreclosed by the appeals court’s landmark 2019 decision in Martin v. City of Boise. In Martin, a group of homeless plaintiffs had sued Idaho’s largest city to stop it from enforcing criminal provisions that made it a misdemeanor to camp in public places. They argued that since the city’s shelters only allowed them to stay for limited periods of time, and they had nowhere else to go, Boise was effectively criminalizing them for having to sleep somewhere.
A three-judge appeals panel ultimately agreed with them. It cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in Robinson v. California in 1967, where the high court struck down a state law that made it a criminal offense to be addicted to narcotics. The court, led by Justice Potter Stewart, concluded that it would be cruel and unusual to punish a person for having a medical condition—in this case, addiction. Later anti-drug laws focused on criminalizing distribution, production, and use instead. The Supreme Court ultimately declined to review Martin in 2020.
Grants Pass claimed that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Martin had near-apocalyptic consequences for the West Coast. “Major cities have come under sweeping classwide injunctions,” they warned in their brief for the justices. “Encampments have multiplied unchecked throughout the West because generally applicable restrictions on public camping no longer play their critical deterrent role, resulting in spikes in violent crime, drug overdoses, disease, fires, and hazardous waste.”