


The Supreme Court on Friday upheld an Oregon city’s laws aimed at banning homeless residents from sleeping outdoors, saying they did not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
The ruling, by a 6-to-3 vote, split along ideological lines, with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch writing for the majority. The laws, enacted in Grants Pass, Ore., penalize sleeping and camping in public places, including sidewalks, streets and city parks.
The conservative supermajority held that the city’s enforcement of general laws aimed at regulating camping on public property did not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” as laid out in the Eighth Amendment.
The decision is likely to reverberate beyond Oregon, altering how cities and states in the West police homelessness.
The Supreme Court agreed to intervene after an unusual coalition urged the justices to consider the case. State legislators in Republican-led states like Arizona and liberal leaders like Gov. Gavin Newsom of California alike have pointed to a crucial court ruling in 2018 that they say has tied their hands from clearing encampments and managing a growing, and increasingly visible, crisis.
The decision, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers Western states, first declared it cruel and unusual punishment for cities and states to penalize someone for sleeping outdoors if no shelter beds were available.