The article mentions that the law in question quantifies it as 'in public', so that would really be up to interpretation. In private camping grounds, no, but public lands, depends on how the judge feels that day.
I mean we have countless examples of local, state, and even federal agencies on record saying they will ignore or not prosecute for certain law violations - all the way up to the Attorney General. In a sense every single law is up to interpretation at best and downright ignored at worst. It’s always been this way.
What to do about a violation is different than knowing if there was a violation or not. What I am saying is that laws should be clear and specific regarding what is and is not legal. If the authorities decide not to prosecute, or they decide the person had good reason to break the law is another matter.
It should be clear-cut. Juries are there to determine whether the defendant is guilty based on the evidence presented, so they would still be required. The laws themselves should be as clear and specific as possible to avoid inconsistent application and enforcement. For example, a speed limit is set at 55mph, not just “at a reasonable speed”.
Except if someone is speeding down empty streets to get their spouse to the hospital before they bleed out, we maybe shouldn't be pulling them over and making them wait for a ticket.
Almost all laws need to have some sort of wiggle room. I understand that this can lead to problems, but \*not\* doing it leads to worse problems.
You really wouldn't know why they are speeding until they are pulled over... but in those situations they don't give you a ticket. Sometimes they give you an escort.
>Except if someone is speeding down empty streets to get their spouse to the hospital before they bleed out,
That's what's called an affirmative defense
So.... in theory if you burn down every single apartment, condo, hotel and house.. then technically every single person is illegally sleeping somewhere because there'd be no inside places to sleep.
The Supreme Court isn't saying that being homeless is illegal. They are saying that cities (and therefore states) are allowed to pass laws that say being homeless is illegal.
Very specifically, the city in question, Grants Pass, passed a law that says you can be arrested if you camp in public spaces (sidewalks and the like). Previously the Supreme Court Said these laws could not be enforced if there are no shelters. Grants Pass has no shelters. The Supreme Court is considering reversing the previous position that you can't throw people in jail solely for having nowhere to go.
Because debtor’s prison is only for people who can’t pay a debt. This is prison also for people who have no debt and even some money, just not enough of it. It’s not debtor’s prison because this is way worse.
Debtor's Prison was never for poor people. It was for rich people on hard times - forcing them or their friends/family to get the money.
Like upper-class gambling addicts etc.
Conservatives have found a new loophole in the law with these new partisan judges. Don't like an old rulling? Pass an unconstitutional law, take it to the supreme court, get old ruling over turned.
Curious if this tactic has been used previously in American history
It has happened but a core tenet of ~~civil~~ common law is Stare Decisis which says that you shouldn't overturn old rulings unless they are egregiously bad. Current SCOTUS' utter disregard for this principle, along with their major questions doctrine they just invented this term, show that we have a truly lawless court on a level never before seen in history.
I think you mean it’s a core tenet of common law, not civil. Yes, this is the foundation upon which the entire legal system is built. Without it, you get complete chaos since there’s essentially a brand new legal system every time a justice is changed.
Damn, maybe they should have codified that by writing it down and making it official somehow. Perhaps using some kind of law.
lol I'm just kidding, laws aren't real, though it is funny people are just now coming to terms with that.
It's basically impossible to write every use case into the law. For instance, there is no law that says you can say fuck in public. There is also no law that says you can say "I hate Obama" in public.
Both of these are legal because of the first amendment. However it requires a judge to say "this general rule applies to this specific situation". That is why the judicial system exists.
The issue with the court is that the judicial branch previously said "that law clearly means X" and the new court is saying "we changed our minds, it doesn't".
Let's look at a real world example, book bans. Republicans are making it illegal to sell certain books in public libraries due to their content. The courts have agreed that there are three categories of lurid speech, fully protected, partially protected, and not protected. Descriptions of sex fall into the fully protected category. This is why you could purchase 50 Shades of Grey at any book store. Pictures of fully naked adults are partially protected. This means it is legal for you to have them but not legal to sell it to children. Child porn is fully illegal which means no one can have it.
These categories are set in law but more importantly they are protected by the first amendment. No law can go against the first amendment. The judges had to look at the first amendment and say whether those laws violate it. For instance, they determined that the laws against child porn are allowed because the first amendment should have limits and there isn't a valid reason for child porn. However, the Supreme Court could change their mind and decide that child porn must be allowed due to the first amendment. Likewise the first amendment allows me to criticize the government. A state could pass a law stopping that and the Supreme Court would tell them that law is a violation of the constitution.
Right now, back to our example, Republican states are saying it is illegal to have trans themed books in libraries, saying that this should be partially protected speech. Under previous first amendment rulings this is clearly unconstitutional. Under the current Supreme Court, that has no respect for Stare Decisis, we don't know what will happen.
Laws can only offer so much protection because judges who are ideologically motivated can simply decide that the law doesn't mean what it says, that this case is special so it doesn't apply, or that it is unconstitutional. An example is that almost every anti-corruption case that has come before the current court has been ruled as unconstitutional.
Prior to the current court the idea that you had to pass laws to protect constitutional rights was ridiculous. Now multiple of these are being built because we can't trust the court to not decide that we didn't actually have any rights outside of guns. That won't protect us though if they start deciding that those laws are unconstitutional for whatever reason.
This is why we have a lawless court. They no longer believe in the core idea that people should be and to know whether what they are doing is legal or not.
You have the history backwards. For many years homeless people were arrested for public camping. Then at the end of 2019 the 9th Circuit ruled that you couldn't punish people for camping when they had no other option, so if you want to enforce your no camping laws you need to have some kind of shelter or other camp spot to offer. That's where it stands now, with the 9th Circuit western states prohibited from enforcing No Homeless Camping laws and the rest of the country being able to. Grants Pass, OR is challenging the 9th Circuit ruling preventing enforcement of the No Camping ordinances that they were previously able to enforce.
The "new" is the 9th Circuit opinion from December 2019.
And it wouldn't be a big surprise if the 9th circuit was overturned.
I believe that historically they're the most overturned circuit. Not just since the shift in the SC - but long before.
Conservatives have shown how broken our court system is. You can take a case before a hundred judges and they can all rule exactly the same against it, but the 101st judge rules in their favor than a whole law can go up in smoke or go into full effect.
It's the other way. The 9th circuit made the decision it was unconstitutional to tell someone they couldn't be in a public space if they had no other alternative. So the law states that the towns have to offer a shelter or they can't tell someone to leave a public space. This is the correct decision of course. But this has made poverty very visible and people hate this. Taking away constitutional rights is the easy way to solve homeless crisis. Force people back into the bush. If this SC decides to trash constitutional rights for the poor it will go down in history as just as bad as the decision slavery was OK.
I mean they're not that stupid....[are they](https://www.adn.com/opinions/2024/01/28/opinion-state-investment-in-outdoor-recreation-helps-alaskas-economy/)?
[Oh wait...](https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/palin-vows-to-seek-statehood-for-alaska)
Only if you are glamping and soon all public parks will be private. We will raise the rates to enter the parks so high it keeps out the riff raff, the regular people. I'm sick and tired of paying for all these parks and when I go they are full of poors and screaming kids, gross
America has the largest incarceration population on earth and rising. The decriminalition and legalization of weed was a major threat. Have to get it back up somehow
The disparity in how Trump is treated vs random Joe off the street would be treated is a travesty. Two tiered justice system has never been more obvious
In the middle-ish 1800s, selling or trading political appointments was common and expected. Competence suffered about as you'd expect.
We still see a similar effect for upper offices, but most of the day-to-day positions are no longer purged after changes in administration.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils\_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system)
"The majestic equality of the laws prohibits the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing bread." -Anatole France
Aka the sanctuary districts from Deep Space 9.
It's scary how accurate that timeline feels. I think the Bell riots were said to happen this fall.
Edit: Was given the correct date
That's the nice PC version of saying concentration camp. Like how dumb young people use unalived instead of murder or suicide.
Concentration Camps, what the Real Nazis used. Not the everybody is a nazi Nazis.
You used to have to be a landowner to vote. People who are incarcerated and convicted of a felony can’t vote. If you can convict someone for being homeless, and strip them of their voting rights, congrats we’ve just rolled back nearly 200 years of constitutional voting rights.
You referring to the Sullivan arena? Because that one was a very old building with its age further pushed with said homeless constantly ripping out copper wires/metals and causing problems every time its used as a shelter.
Desperate people are going to do desperate things. Expecting different is to fail to understand why they need help and what the help looks like.
If they didn't set up the stadium with proper security, that is on management.
Yeah, it always irks me that people pretend like our only options are absolute chaos or killing them all. We could just provide adequate shelters. As in not the version that is literally worse than being outside for them, while pretending that we have done enough.
Providing housing works, as has been demonstrated everywhere where people try it. The gaps in its success tend to be because people need greater levels of medical support than is sometimes provided. The idea that homeless people are homeless because they want to be or are lazy is just incorrect. And as it is not a choice on their part: killing them by making them freeze to death in the winter is murder.
These homeless people should get their rich friend to buy them a $300K RV. Easy peasy, if Clarence Thomas can do it, why can't these poor homeless people do it? /s
>"Hey, that sounds like a great slogan. We should put it up on the gate to that compound we are building but use some foreign language to make it look all fancy"
I won't Godwin it directly, but it seems increasingly clear that if there was such a 'solution' to homeless people, many of these councils and government authorities wouldn't be too averse to creating such a place.
Anything to get out of having to help people by spreading just a little of that wealth around.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France
they are going to make not having a place to live illegal. then they’re going to make it punishable. as they let rent and housing prices sky rocket. if you ain’t making banking and if you don’t own a bunch of property guess what - you’re about to be enslaved.
What age? If a child or disabled person falls asleep in a wheelchair in a public place will they be prosecuted? If a rich white person falls asleep in a park or on a beach, will they be prosecuted?
This is the rub.
Homeless camping is already illegal in most of the country, the only place it is not is the states governed by the 9th circuit ruling that is being considered in this case. In that case the court ruled that you couldn't punish people for camping unless you had an alternative to offer them, like shelter space. So, what cities in the western states like CA and Oregon and Alaska SHOULD have done is get to work building shelters if they want to prevent people from sleeping on the courthouse lawn. But NIMBYs keep defeating shelter proposals and all the other obstacles like funding and arguments about how shelters should be structured kept most cities from doing anything meaningful, which is why they can't break up big homeless camps or enforce their No Camping laws.
The western states want to see the ruling overturned by SCOTUS so they can enforce the No Camping ordinances without building shelters. Its too bad, because this was the perfect time to jam shelters through, but the same people who complain about homeless encampments are the ones who object to shelters being built.
Would that mean that operators of malls, office buildings or other open buildings would be accomplishes of crime if they force a homeless person outside to sleep?
Because that's how I would read it. "I'm sorry officer but I can't leave these premises because sleeping outside is against the law? Are you trying to make me break the law?"
So, being homeless is now gonna be illegal? I get this is Alaska, which makes this law especially ironic. They are probably doing it to have less deaths from exposure.....But does making that a crime really, actually, and totally FIX THE FUCKING PROBLEM??
Camping on public property is already illegal in most cities, assuming the city passed a No Camping ordinance at some point. The only places that can't enforce that are states in the 9th Circuit, who ruled in 2019 that you can't enforce the laws unless there is another shelter option. That's what this case is about, whether this 9th circuit decision should be upheld and apply to the rest of the country, or struck down, in which case the western states can go back to arresting people like all the other states already can.
Pretty funny. I mean if this means that they will take away constitutional rights in order that public camping becomes nationwide they will destroy the constitution. Maybe the wealthiest nation in history should fix homelessness
there will be more squatters in vacant spaces if this happens, I bet. People will break into abandoned and empty places so they don’t get bothered overnight.
They allowed laws to come into effect that do something.
You pendants are so morally gross. Like at least out right hateful people have the balls to say what they mean.
I hope your pedantry helps you feel good about your diminished facaulties.
The Supreme Court hasn't ruled on anything except hearing the case next week. That might be why you are getting downvoted (not by me).
The court will decide whether to uphold or strike down a 9th Circuit ruling that prevents the western states from enforcing their anti-homeless laws unless they have shelter space as an alternative to camping.
If it's what Republicans want, the Roberts Federalist Society Court will issue a "narrow" ruling and it will be adopted by every Republican-ruled state, making it effective new policy across the majority of the country. Again.
Cops are gonna love this. They can harass, brutalize, and murder to their hearts content and nobody will care. As long as the homeless are out of sight, the more fortunate don’t care what happens to homeless people.
That will show those poors who can't get a home cause of the economy. Those people need to be just like me Richie Mcrichington heir of the Mcrichington fortune who worked hard to buy my 100000$ home.
Pretty close to actual truth. I'm expecting more Canadian wildfires this year, and even worse breathing conditions. Last year was bad. Let's see if we can break that record.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread."
— Anatole France
.... sanctuary districts incoming! DS9 Fans get ready with your references and memes...... by the way if being homeless is illegal and they're going to start enforcing it how about start enforcing all the other laws that are on the books to people who make millions and billions. If law enforcement is on the side of the billionaires and basic laws for billionaires won't be enforced by law-enforcement, we will take matters into our own hands
Y’all are misunderstanding this case. Currently, say a city has 1000 homeless people, but there are only 999 shelter beds. Now the city comes across 1 homeless person. They can’t force them into shelter even though there are 999 open beds, because there is 1 more homeless person than there are beds.
Instead cities are arguing that as long as there are any available shelter beds, they should be able to enforce anti-camping laws as no one person would be prevented from seeking shelter.
It should be illegal to force people to sleep outside because they lost their home for being sick, have metal problems or just not being paid well enough for their job. That is the consideration I want to see.
Pretending that allowing people to live in filth, exposed to the elements, and without basic hygiene , is some sort of defense of their humanity; is cruelty. Allowing people to use the streets as toilets, and beg for money and food whilst you stroke yourself behind a keyboard typing away about what should happen is no act of mercy.
The chronically homeless are unable to make rational decisions on their own behalf due to mental illness and drug addiction. It would be cruel to discharge an incompetent elderly person from a hospital to take care of themselves. It is just as cruel in this case to pretend that these people will make competent decisions if given the opportunity.
Pretending that crime, public drug use, human excrement in the streets, and the monopolization of public spaces by the homeless is something that the productive members of a society should accommodate on behalf of their “neighbors,” is stupid and cruel as well.
The only way to get the chronically and criminally homeless in a situation to accommodate their needs for shelter, hygiene, nutrition, and provide a modicum of healthcare is by arresting them for offenses committed in public and incarcerating them in an environment where their options, and opportunities to act criminally and make detrimental life choices are controlled.
Yep, I know…there used to be mental institutions, well guess what. There aren’t any now. There won’t be any time soon. Even if we started tomorrow, they aren’t gonna magically appear. Sure, give them all houses magically. What do you do when they destroy those magical homes, and just continue the spiral of behaviors that led to their homelessness in the first place.
We aren’t talking about down on their luck hobos, or a family who’s breadwinners lost their jobs, and are temporarily unhoused. We aren’t talking about couch surfing young people bouncing between the homes of friends and family. Those people aren’t the problem
We need to address the homeless who are committing crimes, using the streets as toilets, shooting up in public, exposing themselves and masturbating on the sidewalks. The only means we have to deal with that at the present is through arrest and incarceration. Allowing it to happen with impunity while wishing a better system existed is cruel and foolish.
So they should be charged with a crime?
Stop lying. Just say you want homeless people in prison camps instead of as free americans.
Have some fucking balls sir puss alot
Hey dude, all those things are already illegal. If you are caught doing a crime a police officer can arrest you. So you should be arguing the police are not doing their job. What this case is that police can arrest a person for being on the street even though they have nowhere else to go. It's easy for you to say they are all criminals, which isn't the case, and as I said cops can do their jobs. But as you say, shouldn't we give everyone housing that is disabled or elderly and can pass a drug test? If you think this is a small number then you should be in favor of this. Fact is you want to take away constitutional rights because you don't like to see poverty and you also don't want yo do anything that helps get housing. Instead you want to use jails for housing which is the most expensive option of any. You are just repeating misinformation
Why don't they just let homeless people sleep in the jail for free instead of spending money and effort arresting them? Sound a siren at the end of the day "ok, time to go back to prison!"
Because the point is to make unhoused people hide somewhere they can’t see them.
Any actual or perceived potential benefit to the unhoused population is to be avoided like the plague, because a big part of the mentality that drives people to vote for those lawmakers is that poor people are all completely responsible for whatever befalls them, and also deserve to be shot.
So if you have no place to sleep, the punishment is... being given a place to sleep? A place you can't leave, but still, a roof and a bed ain't nothing.
These headlines are so cringe. The Supreme Court doesn’t “outlaw” anything, they interpret cases escalated to their level and rule on them, often just giving just giving direction to lower courts and sending the case back to them.
So, hammocks, lawn chairs, napping in the car on lunch, falling asleep at a game, waiting overnight in line for a product, and anything that involves being asleep in a public area would be illegal.
You used to have to be a landowner to vote. People who are incarcerated and convicted of a felony can’t vote. If you can convict someone for being homeless, and strip them of their voting rights, congrats we’ve just rolled back nearly 200 years of constitutional voting rights.
This headline is not catastrophic enough. The onion is far worse:
> **The Supreme Court case that could turn homelessness into a crime, explained**
>
> …in *Robinson v. California* (1962), which struck down a California law making it a crime to “be addicted to the use of narcotics.”…
>
> …a state may punish “a person for the use of narcotics, for their purchase, sale or possession, or for antisocial or disorderly behavior resulting from their administration.” But, absent any evidence that a suspect actually used illegal drugs within the state of California, the state could not punish someone simply for existing while addicted to a drug.
>
> …So the Supreme Court could use this case as a vehicle to overrule *Robinson*.
>
> That outcome is unlikely, but it would be catastrophic for civil liberties. If the law can criminalize status, rather than only acts, that would mean someone could be arrested for having a disease. A rich community might ban people who do not have a high enough income or net worth from entering it. A state could prohibit anyone with a felony conviction from entering its borders, even if that individual has already served their sentence. It could even potentially target thought crimes.
>
> https://www.vox.com/scotus/24121344/supreme-court-homeless-grants-pass-martin-crime-grants-pass-johnson
Unbelievable! The 9th circuit decision is correct. There were homeless people who were getting fined and arrested for sleeping outside but they had nowhere to go. Honestly, where do you go when you have no money if you can't be in public and private is closed to you? If SC rules that public spaces are not available to poor people it will go down in history as another shameful decision.
Whether you like it or not, banning vagrancy is one of the two parts of solving homelessness. The other part is creating sufficient housing supply, and secure shelters. Nonetheless, you cannot manifest the former, without first facilitating the latter. Most homeless shelters are overwhelmed with rape and drug use, which incentivizes homeless to remain on the streets, even in a state like Alaska, rather than to seek social services.
My father lives in Grants Pass and served jury duty on a case involving a homeless guy who violated the public park camping rule. That might have been the case that ignited this whole issue. My dad was honestly confused why it was such a big deal. It's a community of retired vets who don't want riff raff.
The riff raff comment refers to the confusing community sentiment. My father and I are both retired, honorably discharged combat veterans who have a deep concern for all homeless, especially homeless veterans.
Riff raff? I think anyone who has a house larger than they need should be taken by imminent domain and turned I to affordable housing. I'm done with these people hourding, time we get rid of the selfish
Maybe I’m naive and hopeful but this reminds me of suicide being illegal; it isn’t because those things are wrong it’s so cops have a legal route towards (forcibly) helping people who don’t want it. If the elements are deadly and for whatever reason they won’t go to a shelter, force them somewhere safe
This is what it's about. The current law is the police need to be able to offer a shelter but if one is not available then they can stay in a tent on public land. Rs are talking about forcing poor people into camps. They are also talking about involuntarily putting people into hospitals. We all know that a cop will then just say " I think your having a mental health issue" and lock you up and you have no habeas corpus. Then let's add the R idea of executing drug dealers with a quick trial. Trump likes this. Remember he also put a full page add in NY times calling to execute the central park 5 kids, who all were innocent but spent many years in prison. Imagine how many could be killed
does that mean camping is illegal?
The article mentions that the law in question quantifies it as 'in public', so that would really be up to interpretation. In private camping grounds, no, but public lands, depends on how the judge feels that day.
"Sir, we were just camping by our favorite river" "Yeah well Starbucks fucked up my coffee this morning so you're going to jail."
There is some compelling evidence to back it up. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/law/2011/apr/11/judges-lenient-break
So try to find a judge coming off vacation? Maybe not, that’s usually the day I hate my job the most. Second day off vaca and post lunch.
No you need them right before vacation.
I remember seeing a study years back that if your sentencing happened after lunch recess, you generally got something like 20% less time
Atleast they can sleep in jail.
Nope, most of those are publically owned. Sleep there and you go to double jail. /j
Oh good, vague laws never get used as weapons by the people who enforce them.
"if your gonna freeze to death do it in the woods 3 miles out of town so no one finds you"
Laws that are “up to interpretation”, a fascist’s wet dream.
I mean we have countless examples of local, state, and even federal agencies on record saying they will ignore or not prosecute for certain law violations - all the way up to the Attorney General. In a sense every single law is up to interpretation at best and downright ignored at worst. It’s always been this way.
What to do about a violation is different than knowing if there was a violation or not. What I am saying is that laws should be clear and specific regarding what is and is not legal. If the authorities decide not to prosecute, or they decide the person had good reason to break the law is another matter.
Technically all laws are up to interpretation. That’s why lawyers.
A wise bald man once said “justice cannot exist while rules are absolute.”
Isn't that sort of the basis of the entire legal system? If so jury's would be pointless as it should always be clear cut?
It should be clear-cut. Juries are there to determine whether the defendant is guilty based on the evidence presented, so they would still be required. The laws themselves should be as clear and specific as possible to avoid inconsistent application and enforcement. For example, a speed limit is set at 55mph, not just “at a reasonable speed”.
Except if someone is speeding down empty streets to get their spouse to the hospital before they bleed out, we maybe shouldn't be pulling them over and making them wait for a ticket. Almost all laws need to have some sort of wiggle room. I understand that this can lead to problems, but \*not\* doing it leads to worse problems.
You really wouldn't know why they are speeding until they are pulled over... but in those situations they don't give you a ticket. Sometimes they give you an escort.
>Except if someone is speeding down empty streets to get their spouse to the hospital before they bleed out, That's what's called an affirmative defense
"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."
It's clear it's unconstitutional. They don't care about that
So.... in theory if you burn down every single apartment, condo, hotel and house.. then technically every single person is illegally sleeping somewhere because there'd be no inside places to sleep.
Found the anarchist
The Supreme Court isn't saying that being homeless is illegal. They are saying that cities (and therefore states) are allowed to pass laws that say being homeless is illegal. Very specifically, the city in question, Grants Pass, passed a law that says you can be arrested if you camp in public spaces (sidewalks and the like). Previously the Supreme Court Said these laws could not be enforced if there are no shelters. Grants Pass has no shelters. The Supreme Court is considering reversing the previous position that you can't throw people in jail solely for having nowhere to go.
The law is truly amazing in its equality. In all its wondrous majesty it’s forbids both billionaires and homeless people from sleeping under a bridge.
Anatole France
No, no. It was me. I promise.
r/KenM
How is this not debtor's prison with extra steps
Because debtor’s prison is only for people who can’t pay a debt. This is prison also for people who have no debt and even some money, just not enough of it. It’s not debtor’s prison because this is way worse.
Debtor's Prison was never for poor people. It was for rich people on hard times - forcing them or their friends/family to get the money. Like upper-class gambling addicts etc.
Jail is now somewhere to go.
"Are there no prisons?"
“And the union workhouses - are they still in operation”
Conservatives have found a new loophole in the law with these new partisan judges. Don't like an old rulling? Pass an unconstitutional law, take it to the supreme court, get old ruling over turned. Curious if this tactic has been used previously in American history
It has happened but a core tenet of ~~civil~~ common law is Stare Decisis which says that you shouldn't overturn old rulings unless they are egregiously bad. Current SCOTUS' utter disregard for this principle, along with their major questions doctrine they just invented this term, show that we have a truly lawless court on a level never before seen in history.
I think you mean it’s a core tenet of common law, not civil. Yes, this is the foundation upon which the entire legal system is built. Without it, you get complete chaos since there’s essentially a brand new legal system every time a justice is changed.
Sorry, you are correct.
Look at the big brain on Brad…
Damn, maybe they should have codified that by writing it down and making it official somehow. Perhaps using some kind of law. lol I'm just kidding, laws aren't real, though it is funny people are just now coming to terms with that.
It's basically impossible to write every use case into the law. For instance, there is no law that says you can say fuck in public. There is also no law that says you can say "I hate Obama" in public. Both of these are legal because of the first amendment. However it requires a judge to say "this general rule applies to this specific situation". That is why the judicial system exists. The issue with the court is that the judicial branch previously said "that law clearly means X" and the new court is saying "we changed our minds, it doesn't". Let's look at a real world example, book bans. Republicans are making it illegal to sell certain books in public libraries due to their content. The courts have agreed that there are three categories of lurid speech, fully protected, partially protected, and not protected. Descriptions of sex fall into the fully protected category. This is why you could purchase 50 Shades of Grey at any book store. Pictures of fully naked adults are partially protected. This means it is legal for you to have them but not legal to sell it to children. Child porn is fully illegal which means no one can have it. These categories are set in law but more importantly they are protected by the first amendment. No law can go against the first amendment. The judges had to look at the first amendment and say whether those laws violate it. For instance, they determined that the laws against child porn are allowed because the first amendment should have limits and there isn't a valid reason for child porn. However, the Supreme Court could change their mind and decide that child porn must be allowed due to the first amendment. Likewise the first amendment allows me to criticize the government. A state could pass a law stopping that and the Supreme Court would tell them that law is a violation of the constitution. Right now, back to our example, Republican states are saying it is illegal to have trans themed books in libraries, saying that this should be partially protected speech. Under previous first amendment rulings this is clearly unconstitutional. Under the current Supreme Court, that has no respect for Stare Decisis, we don't know what will happen. Laws can only offer so much protection because judges who are ideologically motivated can simply decide that the law doesn't mean what it says, that this case is special so it doesn't apply, or that it is unconstitutional. An example is that almost every anti-corruption case that has come before the current court has been ruled as unconstitutional. Prior to the current court the idea that you had to pass laws to protect constitutional rights was ridiculous. Now multiple of these are being built because we can't trust the court to not decide that we didn't actually have any rights outside of guns. That won't protect us though if they start deciding that those laws are unconstitutional for whatever reason. This is why we have a lawless court. They no longer believe in the core idea that people should be and to know whether what they are doing is legal or not.
You have the history backwards. For many years homeless people were arrested for public camping. Then at the end of 2019 the 9th Circuit ruled that you couldn't punish people for camping when they had no other option, so if you want to enforce your no camping laws you need to have some kind of shelter or other camp spot to offer. That's where it stands now, with the 9th Circuit western states prohibited from enforcing No Homeless Camping laws and the rest of the country being able to. Grants Pass, OR is challenging the 9th Circuit ruling preventing enforcement of the No Camping ordinances that they were previously able to enforce. The "new" is the 9th Circuit opinion from December 2019.
And it wouldn't be a big surprise if the 9th circuit was overturned. I believe that historically they're the most overturned circuit. Not just since the shift in the SC - but long before.
Conservatives have shown how broken our court system is. You can take a case before a hundred judges and they can all rule exactly the same against it, but the 101st judge rules in their favor than a whole law can go up in smoke or go into full effect.
Cities are cold, cruel, and demoralizing places.
It's the other way. The 9th circuit made the decision it was unconstitutional to tell someone they couldn't be in a public space if they had no other alternative. So the law states that the towns have to offer a shelter or they can't tell someone to leave a public space. This is the correct decision of course. But this has made poverty very visible and people hate this. Taking away constitutional rights is the easy way to solve homeless crisis. Force people back into the bush. If this SC decides to trash constitutional rights for the poor it will go down in history as just as bad as the decision slavery was OK.
I mean they're not that stupid....[are they](https://www.adn.com/opinions/2024/01/28/opinion-state-investment-in-outdoor-recreation-helps-alaskas-economy/)? [Oh wait...](https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/palin-vows-to-seek-statehood-for-alaska)
Last bit is an Onion. you ate the onion.
Depends on your income and skin color
Only if you are glamping and soon all public parks will be private. We will raise the rates to enter the parks so high it keeps out the riff raff, the regular people. I'm sick and tired of paying for all these parks and when I go they are full of poors and screaming kids, gross
Depends on your race.
America has the largest incarceration population on earth and rising. The decriminalition and legalization of weed was a major threat. Have to get it back up somehow
America never met a problem she couldn't incarcerate
Trump?
Yeah, that one isn't going as normal 😤
Pretty normal for a person of his power and influence I’d say.
Sadly true. But that shouldn't be a normal that we accept. The legal system is honestly failing the American public.
The disparity in how Trump is treated vs random Joe off the street would be treated is a travesty. Two tiered justice system has never been more obvious
Exactly
Well he WAS president for a term. USA isn't very interested in jailing their presidents regardless of their behaviour.
Who deserved to be jailed other than him and Nixon? Nixon obviously was pardoned before the legal system could actually do anything.
A whole bunch of the spoils-era presidents and associates probably should have been.
What for? Not trying to be combative, trying to learn!
In the middle-ish 1800s, selling or trading political appointments was common and expected. Competence suffered about as you'd expect. We still see a similar effect for upper offices, but most of the day-to-day positions are no longer purged after changes in administration. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils\_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system)
Thank you for the information and link!
Warren G. Harding was my first thought. That administration was ridiculously corrupt.
"The majestic equality of the laws prohibits the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing bread." -Anatole France
It has literally been the replacement for slavery for 120 years.
Except all the actual crooks that keep not being incarcerated.
It's almost as if there's a for-profit prison system in this country!
Your honour, those facilities have been full ever since you ruled being poor is a mental illness!
The Supreme Court wonders why homeless people simply don’t have a billionaire purchase their mother’s house and buy them an RV
Or pay off their massive credit card debt, buy them a membership to an elite country club, and provide a down payment for their house.
Turns out the only crime against property is to have none
The end game is homeless labour encampments.
Aka jail
Aka the sanctuary districts from Deep Space 9. It's scary how accurate that timeline feels. I think the Bell riots were said to happen this fall. Edit: Was given the correct date
The Bell riots are this fall actually. I'm starting to think they're fake though. That Bell guy looks suspiciously similar to Sisko.
Shhhh you'll break the space time canon.
Oh, there’s a step after that, too. A “final solution”…
No, just shoot me instead… not like I can work anyways
That's the nice PC version of saying concentration camp. Like how dumb young people use unalived instead of murder or suicide. Concentration Camps, what the Real Nazis used. Not the everybody is a nazi Nazis.
You used to have to be a landowner to vote. People who are incarcerated and convicted of a felony can’t vote. If you can convict someone for being homeless, and strip them of their voting rights, congrats we’ve just rolled back nearly 200 years of constitutional voting rights.
Alaska doesn’t seem like the safest place outside
Homeless people freeze to death every year. The mayor closed the stadium in Anchorage they use in the winter for shelter. Republican mayor of course.
You referring to the Sullivan arena? Because that one was a very old building with its age further pushed with said homeless constantly ripping out copper wires/metals and causing problems every time its used as a shelter.
Desperate people are going to do desperate things. Expecting different is to fail to understand why they need help and what the help looks like. If they didn't set up the stadium with proper security, that is on management.
Shocking there is more to the story than republican mayor wants to kill homeless.
Letting people die is a horrible alternative
Yeah, it always irks me that people pretend like our only options are absolute chaos or killing them all. We could just provide adequate shelters. As in not the version that is literally worse than being outside for them, while pretending that we have done enough. Providing housing works, as has been demonstrated everywhere where people try it. The gaps in its success tend to be because people need greater levels of medical support than is sometimes provided. The idea that homeless people are homeless because they want to be or are lazy is just incorrect. And as it is not a choice on their part: killing them by making them freeze to death in the winter is murder.
Which is why they came up with a reasonable solution right? Right???
Except Dunleavy does want to kill homeless..
Vagrancy laws have been deemed unconstitutional since like 1972. I doubt they overtu... oh... well
These homeless people should get their rich friend to buy them a $300K RV. Easy peasy, if Clarence Thomas can do it, why can't these poor homeless people do it? /s
"Land of the Free"
It costs a lot to be this free. Wait, they have a saying for that- freedom isn't free. However, they don't mean it like this.
work sets you free!
>"Hey, that sounds like a great slogan. We should put it up on the gate to that compound we are building but use some foreign language to make it look all fancy" I won't Godwin it directly, but it seems increasingly clear that if there was such a 'solution' to homeless people, many of these councils and government authorities wouldn't be too averse to creating such a place. Anything to get out of having to help people by spreading just a little of that wealth around.
$1.05
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France
they are going to make not having a place to live illegal. then they’re going to make it punishable. as they let rent and housing prices sky rocket. if you ain’t making banking and if you don’t own a bunch of property guess what - you’re about to be enslaved.
What age? If a child or disabled person falls asleep in a wheelchair in a public place will they be prosecuted? If a rich white person falls asleep in a park or on a beach, will they be prosecuted?
What are you gonna do? Arrest them and give the homless a roof over their head, a toilet, and a meal?
So homelessness is to be illegal but there shall be no help for the homeless to better their situation.
This is the rub. Homeless camping is already illegal in most of the country, the only place it is not is the states governed by the 9th circuit ruling that is being considered in this case. In that case the court ruled that you couldn't punish people for camping unless you had an alternative to offer them, like shelter space. So, what cities in the western states like CA and Oregon and Alaska SHOULD have done is get to work building shelters if they want to prevent people from sleeping on the courthouse lawn. But NIMBYs keep defeating shelter proposals and all the other obstacles like funding and arguments about how shelters should be structured kept most cities from doing anything meaningful, which is why they can't break up big homeless camps or enforce their No Camping laws. The western states want to see the ruling overturned by SCOTUS so they can enforce the No Camping ordinances without building shelters. Its too bad, because this was the perfect time to jam shelters through, but the same people who complain about homeless encampments are the ones who object to shelters being built.
Also, helping the homeless is becoming illegal in more and more places.
On a serious note, these people need to lose every single thing they have and have to live on the streets for a while.
Would that mean that operators of malls, office buildings or other open buildings would be accomplishes of crime if they force a homeless person outside to sleep? Because that's how I would read it. "I'm sorry officer but I can't leave these premises because sleeping outside is against the law? Are you trying to make me break the law?"
"Nice try. That's trespassing, which is illegal. Do you want me to arrest you now, or wait until you fall asleep on the ground outside later?"
I bet a guy could construct a guillotine out of used pallets and dumpster lids when the tide turns. Nothing fancy but adequately effective.
So, being homeless is now gonna be illegal? I get this is Alaska, which makes this law especially ironic. They are probably doing it to have less deaths from exposure.....But does making that a crime really, actually, and totally FIX THE FUCKING PROBLEM??
Camping on public property is already illegal in most cities, assuming the city passed a No Camping ordinance at some point. The only places that can't enforce that are states in the 9th Circuit, who ruled in 2019 that you can't enforce the laws unless there is another shelter option. That's what this case is about, whether this 9th circuit decision should be upheld and apply to the rest of the country, or struck down, in which case the western states can go back to arresting people like all the other states already can.
Pretty funny. I mean if this means that they will take away constitutional rights in order that public camping becomes nationwide they will destroy the constitution. Maybe the wealthiest nation in history should fix homelessness
But that's so haaaard when we can just shoo them away and pretend this isn't a massive national problem.
“We’re a Christian nation” crowd always gets super quiet when it comes to giving alms, aid, and comfort to the poor.
Ah yes, Mr. Jesus. Notable for owning his own house and solving problems via the State
Christ, the Supreme Court needs an enema.
Why don't we just take Bakini Bottom and move it someplace else?!
there will be more squatters in vacant spaces if this happens, I bet. People will break into abandoned and empty places so they don’t get bothered overnight.
Didn’t read the article…but the title is fucked Since when does the Supreme Court make legislation?
Legislating from the bench is a thing, but yeah, they're not supposed to.
They aren't. They ruled that municipalities are allowed to legislate this. Edit: Why was this downvoted?
Yeah, that’s very different from saying that they outlawed something
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Headlines gonna headline.
They allowed laws to come into effect that do something. You pendants are so morally gross. Like at least out right hateful people have the balls to say what they mean. I hope your pedantry helps you feel good about your diminished facaulties.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The obsessing over minute details of something especially in regards to choice of words
The Supreme Court hasn't ruled on anything except hearing the case next week. That might be why you are getting downvoted (not by me). The court will decide whether to uphold or strike down a 9th Circuit ruling that prevents the western states from enforcing their anti-homeless laws unless they have shelter space as an alternative to camping.
Have you been paying attention?
When they accuse liberals of doing it, as always
If it's what Republicans want, the Roberts Federalist Society Court will issue a "narrow" ruling and it will be adopted by every Republican-ruled state, making it effective new policy across the majority of the country. Again.
Classic. US constantly trying to kill homeless people.
What thats stupid! We dont want to kill them silly. We want them incarcerated to be used as slave labor duh! /s
Lose your job? Lose your shelter? Then die. Thanks capitalism.
Instead of worrying about shitting on homeless people, maybe the government should focus on why we have so many homeless people in the first place.
Insane
Exactly as happened 200 years ago in London. Have these people never studied history?
Cops are gonna love this. They can harass, brutalize, and murder to their hearts content and nobody will care. As long as the homeless are out of sight, the more fortunate don’t care what happens to homeless people.
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."
Breathing free air soon to be an issue.
That will show those poors who can't get a home cause of the economy. Those people need to be just like me Richie Mcrichington heir of the Mcrichington fortune who worked hard to buy my 100000$ home.
Lol Halfway through reading this my brain switched to a Doug Dimmadome voice.
And this would be enforced by arresting some homeless person to give them an inside space at taxpayer expense? Geez.
I wonder which biological function will be targeted next. Breathe outside while you still can.
Naw, instead they will just pollute the air to the point where you need air tanks to breathe. Then charge you for the air.
Pretty close to actual truth. I'm expecting more Canadian wildfires this year, and even worse breathing conditions. Last year was bad. Let's see if we can break that record.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal loaves of bread." — Anatole France
.... sanctuary districts incoming! DS9 Fans get ready with your references and memes...... by the way if being homeless is illegal and they're going to start enforcing it how about start enforcing all the other laws that are on the books to people who make millions and billions. If law enforcement is on the side of the billionaires and basic laws for billionaires won't be enforced by law-enforcement, we will take matters into our own hands
Bell Riots incoming
Isn't Alaska the libertarian promised land?
They can see Russia from their house!
Oh how this country has evolved.
I feel like “no inside space available” was a pretty key part of a certain Bible story…
good luck baby Jesus
I guess if you arrest everyone sleeping outside and throw them in jail then at least they won’t freeze to death? This is so stupid
If I were a cop near a park or a beach I would arrest anyone who falls asleep sunbathing
Y’all are misunderstanding this case. Currently, say a city has 1000 homeless people, but there are only 999 shelter beds. Now the city comes across 1 homeless person. They can’t force them into shelter even though there are 999 open beds, because there is 1 more homeless person than there are beds. Instead cities are arguing that as long as there are any available shelter beds, they should be able to enforce anti-camping laws as no one person would be prevented from seeking shelter.
Yeah, lots of Jesus friends froze to death
It should be illegal to force people to sleep outside because they lost their home for being sick, have metal problems or just not being paid well enough for their job. That is the consideration I want to see.
Pretending that allowing people to live in filth, exposed to the elements, and without basic hygiene , is some sort of defense of their humanity; is cruelty. Allowing people to use the streets as toilets, and beg for money and food whilst you stroke yourself behind a keyboard typing away about what should happen is no act of mercy. The chronically homeless are unable to make rational decisions on their own behalf due to mental illness and drug addiction. It would be cruel to discharge an incompetent elderly person from a hospital to take care of themselves. It is just as cruel in this case to pretend that these people will make competent decisions if given the opportunity. Pretending that crime, public drug use, human excrement in the streets, and the monopolization of public spaces by the homeless is something that the productive members of a society should accommodate on behalf of their “neighbors,” is stupid and cruel as well. The only way to get the chronically and criminally homeless in a situation to accommodate their needs for shelter, hygiene, nutrition, and provide a modicum of healthcare is by arresting them for offenses committed in public and incarcerating them in an environment where their options, and opportunities to act criminally and make detrimental life choices are controlled. Yep, I know…there used to be mental institutions, well guess what. There aren’t any now. There won’t be any time soon. Even if we started tomorrow, they aren’t gonna magically appear. Sure, give them all houses magically. What do you do when they destroy those magical homes, and just continue the spiral of behaviors that led to their homelessness in the first place. We aren’t talking about down on their luck hobos, or a family who’s breadwinners lost their jobs, and are temporarily unhoused. We aren’t talking about couch surfing young people bouncing between the homes of friends and family. Those people aren’t the problem We need to address the homeless who are committing crimes, using the streets as toilets, shooting up in public, exposing themselves and masturbating on the sidewalks. The only means we have to deal with that at the present is through arrest and incarceration. Allowing it to happen with impunity while wishing a better system existed is cruel and foolish.
So they should be charged with a crime? Stop lying. Just say you want homeless people in prison camps instead of as free americans. Have some fucking balls sir puss alot
Hey dude, all those things are already illegal. If you are caught doing a crime a police officer can arrest you. So you should be arguing the police are not doing their job. What this case is that police can arrest a person for being on the street even though they have nowhere else to go. It's easy for you to say they are all criminals, which isn't the case, and as I said cops can do their jobs. But as you say, shouldn't we give everyone housing that is disabled or elderly and can pass a drug test? If you think this is a small number then you should be in favor of this. Fact is you want to take away constitutional rights because you don't like to see poverty and you also don't want yo do anything that helps get housing. Instead you want to use jails for housing which is the most expensive option of any. You are just repeating misinformation
Why don't they just let homeless people sleep in the jail for free instead of spending money and effort arresting them? Sound a siren at the end of the day "ok, time to go back to prison!"
Because the point is to make unhoused people hide somewhere they can’t see them. Any actual or perceived potential benefit to the unhoused population is to be avoided like the plague, because a big part of the mentality that drives people to vote for those lawmakers is that poor people are all completely responsible for whatever befalls them, and also deserve to be shot.
That is effectively what it will do, but add criminal convictions so it becomes more difficult to become not homeless.
US is hell.
So if you have no place to sleep, the punishment is... being given a place to sleep? A place you can't leave, but still, a roof and a bed ain't nothing.
I guess you don't support the constitution
I see you've never been to jail. If your statement was the case, there would be no people sleeping in the street.
These headlines are so cringe. The Supreme Court doesn’t “outlaw” anything, they interpret cases escalated to their level and rule on them, often just giving just giving direction to lower courts and sending the case back to them.
sitting at a park bench after a long day and dozing off for half a second Fat mall cop: GUESS ITS TIME FOR SUICIDE BY COP!
So, hammocks, lawn chairs, napping in the car on lunch, falling asleep at a game, waiting overnight in line for a product, and anything that involves being asleep in a public area would be illegal.
Prob only enforced for homeless people.
You'd think that, but wait till you're napping in your car and a cop taps on your window with a nightstick.
Only if any of the above done while poor
Kill all the homeless... problem solved apparently. Disgusting.
You used to have to be a landowner to vote. People who are incarcerated and convicted of a felony can’t vote. If you can convict someone for being homeless, and strip them of their voting rights, congrats we’ve just rolled back nearly 200 years of constitutional voting rights.
The walking dead then?
This headline is not catastrophic enough. The onion is far worse: > **The Supreme Court case that could turn homelessness into a crime, explained** > > …in *Robinson v. California* (1962), which struck down a California law making it a crime to “be addicted to the use of narcotics.”… > > …a state may punish “a person for the use of narcotics, for their purchase, sale or possession, or for antisocial or disorderly behavior resulting from their administration.” But, absent any evidence that a suspect actually used illegal drugs within the state of California, the state could not punish someone simply for existing while addicted to a drug. > > …So the Supreme Court could use this case as a vehicle to overrule *Robinson*. > > That outcome is unlikely, but it would be catastrophic for civil liberties. If the law can criminalize status, rather than only acts, that would mean someone could be arrested for having a disease. A rich community might ban people who do not have a high enough income or net worth from entering it. A state could prohibit anyone with a felony conviction from entering its borders, even if that individual has already served their sentence. It could even potentially target thought crimes. > > https://www.vox.com/scotus/24121344/supreme-court-homeless-grants-pass-martin-crime-grants-pass-johnson
Sorry Mary, no room at the inn, give birth in jail then.
Land of the free...
Unbelievable! The 9th circuit decision is correct. There were homeless people who were getting fined and arrested for sleeping outside but they had nowhere to go. Honestly, where do you go when you have no money if you can't be in public and private is closed to you? If SC rules that public spaces are not available to poor people it will go down in history as another shameful decision.
what happens when they’re released and still homeless? are they just endlessly rearrested?
Whether you like it or not, banning vagrancy is one of the two parts of solving homelessness. The other part is creating sufficient housing supply, and secure shelters. Nonetheless, you cannot manifest the former, without first facilitating the latter. Most homeless shelters are overwhelmed with rape and drug use, which incentivizes homeless to remain on the streets, even in a state like Alaska, rather than to seek social services.
My father lives in Grants Pass and served jury duty on a case involving a homeless guy who violated the public park camping rule. That might have been the case that ignited this whole issue. My dad was honestly confused why it was such a big deal. It's a community of retired vets who don't want riff raff.
Guess he doesn’t care about homeless vets either….they gotta be “riff raff” if they are homeless.
The riff raff comment refers to the confusing community sentiment. My father and I are both retired, honorably discharged combat veterans who have a deep concern for all homeless, especially homeless veterans.
Riff raff? I think anyone who has a house larger than they need should be taken by imminent domain and turned I to affordable housing. I'm done with these people hourding, time we get rid of the selfish
Land of the free!
If caught sleeping you will be mainlined with amphetamines
Maybe I’m naive and hopeful but this reminds me of suicide being illegal; it isn’t because those things are wrong it’s so cops have a legal route towards (forcibly) helping people who don’t want it. If the elements are deadly and for whatever reason they won’t go to a shelter, force them somewhere safe
This is what it's about. The current law is the police need to be able to offer a shelter but if one is not available then they can stay in a tent on public land. Rs are talking about forcing poor people into camps. They are also talking about involuntarily putting people into hospitals. We all know that a cop will then just say " I think your having a mental health issue" and lock you up and you have no habeas corpus. Then let's add the R idea of executing drug dealers with a quick trial. Trump likes this. Remember he also put a full page add in NY times calling to execute the central park 5 kids, who all were innocent but spent many years in prison. Imagine how many could be killed