The Supreme Court sided with a small Oregon city’s crackdown on homeless people sleeping in public in its ruling Friday in the case of City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson.
The Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of ordinances in Grants Pass, a city in southwest Oregon with a population of about 40,000, that fines homeless people for using blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes while sleeping in public within city limits.
Grants Pass residents who have been homeless, including Gloria Johnson, sued the city in this case.
Grants Pass maintained the ordinances bar camping on public property by everyone, while the counsel of the defendant, argued the laws make homelessness a crime, violating the “cruel and unusual punishment” ban in the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
Grants Pass Municipal Code includes an “anti-sleeping” ordinance, two…
