City of Grants Pass v. Johnson

The City of Grants Pass, Oregon passed ordinances barring people from sleeping outside in public using a blanket, pillow, or even a cardboard sheet to lie on. Under these ordinances, unhoused people could be saddled with hundreds of dollars in fines and even jail time for sleeping outside, even they had no alternative because the city lacked enough shelter beds. A group of unhoused residents challenged the City’s enforcement of these laws against them as violating the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishments clause.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that criminally punishing unhoused people for sleeping outside violates the Eighth Amendment “if there are no other public areas or appropriate shelters where those individuals can sleep.” The court held that this was effectively punishing people for the status of being homeless.

The ACLU and affiliates in 18 states submitted an amicus brief urging the Court to uphold the Ninth Circuit’s decision, but also urging the Court not to undo decades of doctrine holding that disproportionate criminal punishment can be cruel and unusual.

The ACLU brief argues that the Eighth Amendment’s broad language prohibiting the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments” was understood at the time of its adoption to the U.S. Constitution to embody the principle of proportionality, meaning that a punishment must be appropriately tailored to the seriousness of the offense. For over a century, the Supreme Court has inteprreted the Eighth Amendment to require a punishment to match the severity of the offense and the blameworthiness of the defendant and further the aims our criminal legal system. The ACLU brief argues that where the “offense” involves sleeping outside where no alternative shelter exists, any punishment, including the fines and jail time imposed by the city, is plainly disproportionate.