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US Supreme Court to consider whether it’s legal to sleep outside in Oregon city
The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday over the constitutionality of a law passed in Grants Pass, a small city in Oregon, that makes it a crime for people to sleep outdoors with blankets.
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Mundo Oregon
At issue is the criminalization of homelessness, a growing problem in the U.S.
"The real purpose of this law is to make it impossible for homeless people to live in the city," Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, said during the hearing.
Justice Elena Kagan, also a liberal, said that for someone who has nowhere else to go, "sleeping is a life-sustaining activity" and accused Grants Pass officials of "criminalizing a status."
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, another liberal, said it was "cruel and unusual" to punish people for conduct that is "an unavoidable consequence of being human," like sleeping.
The court's conservatives signaled that addressing homelessness is a "difficult policy question" that should be left to elected officials, not the courts.
The nine justices spent more than two hours hearing arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson, in which a group of homeless people are challenging the city's ordinances that prohibit sleeping or camping with any kind of bedding in public spaces.
They argue that the laws are unconstitutional because they are involuntarily homeless — there are no shelter beds available in the city — and the city can't punish them for sleeping outside without offering them a place to go.
They base their claim of unconstitutionality on the Eighth Amendment, which bars excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishments.
They also cite a 1962 Supreme Court ruling that held that it is not a crime to be a drug addict. They argue that homelessness is like drug addiction, a condition for which people cannot be punished.
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