City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson

In 1962, in Robinson v. California, the Supreme Court ruled that, under the Eighth Amendment to the United States constitution, which forbids “cruel and unusual punishment,” states are forbidden from criminally penalizing defendants solely for the status of being addicted to drugs, if the defendant had not committed additional criminal conduct involving drugs.

Subsequently, in a 2018 ruling, Martin v. Boise, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion forbidding governments from prosecuting people experiencing homelessness for “sitting, sleeping, or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter.” The ruling does not require cities to provide sufficient shelter for individuals experiencing homelessness or allow anyone who wishes to sit, lie, or sleep on the streets at any time and at any place. Cities are only barred from prosecuting people experiencing homelessness when there is insufficient shelter.

Six weeks after the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Martin v. Boise, several plaintiffs experiencing homelessness in Grants Pass filed a federal class action lawsuit against the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon challenging five municipal ordinances. Collectively, the ordinances consisted of the following measures:

(1) a ban on sitting, sleeping, or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter (“anti-sleeping ordinance”);

(2) occupying a campsite on public property, a campsite being defined in part as, “any place where bedding, sleeping bag, or other material used for bedding purposes, or any stove or fire is placed, established, or maintained for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live[]”; and

(3) camping in any public park, including the overnight parking of a vehicle, defined as leaving a vehicle, “a vehicle parked for two consecutive hours [in a City park] . . . between the hours of midnight and 6:00 a.m.” Collectively, these two ordinances will be referred to as the “anti-camping ordinances.”

Violations of either (2) or (3) were punishable with a fine of $295. Unpaid fines increased to $537.60. However, if an individual pled guilty to a violation, the fine could be reduced to $180 for the first offense and $225 for the second offense.

Another ordinance allowed city police to issue a park exclusion order banning individuals from parks for 30 days if they had committed two or more violations of park regulations over the past year (“park exclusion order ordinance”). Exclusion orders are appealable to the city council, and violation of one may lead to prosecution for criminal trespass.

The trial court issued an order providing partial relief requested by the plaintiffs, enjoining several parts of the contested ordinances. The court enjoined enforcement of the park exclusion order ordinance and declared enforcement of the anti-sleeping and anti-camping ordinances against the plaintiff class violated the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court then granted partial relief limiting the enforcement of some of the ordinances to certain times and places within the city.

On appeal in 2023, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit partially affirmed the district court’s injunction, narrowing the scope of relief granted. The city then sought relief on appeal, which was granted by the US Supreme Court. In its appeal, the City of Grants Pass asked the U.S. Supreme Court to limit the reach of its decision in Robinson and hold that the ruling only concerns criminally prosecuting someone on the basis of addiction. Under this interpretation, the city would be allowed to fine and potentially prosecute people experiencing homelessness for violating the ordinances at issue.

The City of San Francisco then filed an amicus brief arguing the Ninth Circuit’s decision had prevented it from enforcing several state and local laws limiting camping in public spaces and made it potentially liable for violating the Eighth Amendment whenever it cleared an encampment of people experiencing homelessness. San Francisco argued that the Ninth Circuit’s decision should be overturned to allow local governments to clear encampments, including those causing health, safety, and access issues, and restricting use of public property, but affirmed with respect to prohibiting criminalizing the status of being homeless.

On April 2, 2024, the League of Women Voters of San Francisco (LWV San Francisco) and the League of Women Voters of California (LWV California) filed an amicus brief along with other civic groups responding to the City of San Francisco’s amicus brief, asserting that the city was already free to enforce regulations protecting health, safety, and access to public spaces. The brief pointed out that the roots of the housing crisis lay with multiple factors, such as zoning laws reducing density and housing supply to exclude people of color and governments’ decades-long failure to build affordable housing. The amici also asserted elected officials from San Francisco and other cities were attempting to use the Ninth Circuit’s ruling to excuse their failures.

LWV San Francisco and LWV California were represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.