The U.S. attorney general seeks time to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to roll back a court order barring enforcement of Grants Pass' public camping ban, which has roiled Western cities over how to deal with rising homelessness. There is.
The federal government is using its “nation's largest asset” to protect its citizens from unconstitutional crackdowns while ensuring cities across the country “appropriately and humanely” respond to the public health and safety problems posed by encampments. “Owner,'' Attorney General Elizabeth Preloger wrote. She said this week in a friend-of-the-court brief.
However, the government's position to define “involuntary homelessness” based on individual circumstances, rather than the number of shelter beds, is similar to the position in Grants Pass and the homeless community that challenged the city's anti-camping ordinance. This is not completely consistent with the position of those with experience.
The Attorney-General said the government agreed that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits local authorities from criminalizing homelessness by banning people without access to shelter from sleeping in their cities and towns. He said he is doing so.
But she said that doesn't uphold the 9th Circuit's broad class action ruling, which defines involuntary homelessness as “the number of homeless people in a jurisdiction greater than the number of beds available in shelters.” Ta.
The Ninth Circuit ruled that by limiting the Grants Pass litigants to those considered “involuntarily homeless,” the city would no longer need to conduct such a separate investigation.
Preloger said decisions should not be made primarily based on “aggregate statistics such as the number of shelter beds” in a community or homeless population.
Instead, police and courts will determine whether someone has somewhere else to sleep, whether they have access to temporary shelter, or whether someone has access to temporary shelter but chooses not to, or the cost of shelter. She argued that people should first determine whether they have the means to pay.
Without that information, she wrote, it is impossible to determine whether the sleep is “an inevitable consequence of their status as homeless.”
He will ask the Supreme Court to send the case back to the Ninth Circuit to reconsider the merits of class certification and the “appropriate scope” of the ruling.
Doing so, Preloger wrote, would alleviate the concerns of cities across the country, particularly those on the West Coast, including Portland, who are struggling to deal with insurmountable and widespread homelessness.
By requiring an investigation into each person's circumstances, local, state, and federal governments have considerable power to enact laws regulating public sleeping and camping, including appropriate time, place, and etiquette restrictions. It becomes clear, she writes, that there is still discretion.
And cities can still impose restrictions on the use of fires, stoves, and tents in public spaces, close camps due to illness or crime, and ban people from sleeping in certain areas. She claimed it was sexual.
The federal government says the Grants Pass ruling, which bans people without access to shelter from sleeping in public places using any form of bedding, is akin to “a form of ostracism” and that the U.S. Preloger wrote that he agrees with the Ninth Circuit's ruling that it violates legal tradition.
She cited the constitutional principle of the 1962 U.S. Supreme Court decision Robinson v. California that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the government from punishing people on the basis of “condition or status.” In this case, the defendant was not punished for his drug addiction.
Grants Pass attorneys argued that the city's anti-camping ordinance is constitutional because it prohibits “specific conduct” rather than targeting the “condition” of homelessness.
But Preloger disagreed, pointing out that sleep is a “life-sustaining activity” that must occur at some point. There is no meaningful distinction between punishing a homeless person for sleeping in a public place and punishing homelessness if the person has nowhere else to sleep, she wrote.
Evidence in the lawsuit alleges that the city's ordinance had “the specific purpose of severing its ties to Grants Pass by forcibly relocating homeless residents to neighboring towns and nearby federal, state, and county lands.” “This shows that it has been adopted,” she wrote.
“And if every jurisdiction in the country adopted ordinances like the one at issue here, there would be no place for homeless people to legally live,” Preloger wrote.
Preloger asked for 10 minutes on April 22 to make his argument. Those who objected to the Grants Pass ordinance offered to cede five minutes of their time to the attorney general. The Grants Pass side had no intention of giving up the 30 minutes allotted for discussion. No decision has yet been made regarding Prelogar's request.
Lawyers for Gloria Johnson and John Logan, the named plaintiffs in the case, say the record clearly proves that their clients who challenged the Grants Pass ordinance are involuntarily homeless. He claimed that there was.
Lawyers pointed out that there are no secular shelters available for adults in the city.
Additionally, they argue that any challenge to the “involuntary homelessness” classification is moot before the Supreme Court because Grants Pass does not seek to narrow the petition's hearing audience.
The 9th Circuit majority rejected the dissenting judges' request to investigate each person's circumstances, saying the decision “is best made when the city seeks to enforce the ordinance.” . If it is determined at the time of enforcement that a homeless person has access to a shelter, that person will not have the benefit of a court injunction and may be charged or prosecuted under the anti-camping ordinance. The Ninth Circuit held.
Johnson, 68, a former nurse, lived in a 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan with her dog, but Grants Pass police told her to move the van or she would be ticketed. I was repeatedly told I would be fined for sleeping or camping illegally. She was told it was illegal to sleep in a van anywhere in Grants Pass. As a result, she often sleeps in her van on the outskirts of the city at night to avoid being woken up or harassed.
California Governor Gavin Newsom agreed in a friend-of-the-court brief that people experiencing homelessness should not face criminal penalties for camping out when they have nowhere to go. However, as with the federal government, any “constitutional limits” on enforcement are narrow, and “the extensive “This is not grounds for an injunction.” Homelessness crisis. ”
The California cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles filed separate briefs agreeing on the basic premise that sleeping at night in a public place if there is no other place to sleep is not a crime that can lead to arrest, conviction, and prison. . . But they are seeking clarification from the Supreme Court, arguing that past decisions have made policy decisions that seek to house people in need while ensuring the safety of public spaces “unworkable.”
Oregon nonprofits, including the Oregon Food Bank, Cascade AIDS Project, and Tenant Community Alliance, believe that homelessness is a condition, not a choice, that there is a lack of affordable housing, and that near poverty levels It was argued that this was due to income and other personal circumstances. assignment.
The Washington, D.C.-based National Homeless Law Center says the 9th Circuit has decided to prevent cities from “scapegoating unpopular social groups” to avoid the task of “rectifying social ills.” He said he had intervened correctly.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling by early July.
–Maxine Bernstein covers federal courts and criminal justice. Contact us at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com. Follow me on X. @maxoregonianor on LinkedIn.
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