The U.S. Supreme Court overrules a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Martin v. Boise, 920 F. 3d 584 (2019) finding that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment does not bar States and Municipalities from enforcing laws banning camping on public property. The Martin decision barred the City of Boise, Idaho from enforcing a public camping ordinance that made it a misdemeanor to use streets, sidewalks, parks or public places for camping where homeless individuals lacked access to alternative shelter. That access was deemed lacking according to the Ninth Circuit whenever there is a greater number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction than the number of available beds in shelters. Cities across the Western United States found the ill-defined involuntariness test to be unworkable, leaving local jurisdictions with little or no direction as to the scope of their authority in the day-to-day policing of public parks and places.
The Supreme Court observed that the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause has always been considered to be directed at the method or kind of punishment a government may impose for violation of criminal statutes. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause focuses on the question what method or kind of punishment a government may impose after a criminal conviction, not on the question whether a government may criminalize particular behavior in the first place. The Court found that that the punishments Grants Pass imposed on camping in public spaces were not cruel and unusual. The city imposes only limited fines for first-time offenders, with further enhancement of the penalty to include an order temporarily barring an individual from camping in a public park for repeat offenders, and a maximum sentence of 30 days in jail for those who later violate an order. Such punishments do not qualify as cruel because they are not designed to inflict terror, pain, or disgrace.
The Court concluded that The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to wrest from local officials their rights and responsibilities to develop and implement policies to address the complex problems of homelessness.