Right Wing US Supreme Court Considers Criminalization of Homelessness
Jail And Concentration Camps For People Who Can’t Afford The Rent
I Know Obscene Deliberations When I See Them
JUSTICE KAGAN: [sleeping] is a biological necessity. It’s sort of like breathing. I mean, you could say breathing is conduct too, but, presumably, you would not think that it’s okay to criminalize breathing in public.
And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public. ~~~ Oral argument, transcript at page 20)
[Update below – check out the Biden administration’s “enlightened” legal position.]
I felt a deep sense of shame and disgust in just now reading the transcript of the oral argument before the US Supreme Court in a case that involves a local ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon that bans camping by homeless people. Scores of homeless people have been harassed by police, heavily fined, and/or jailed for violating the ordinance by sleeping in public places.
I’ve recently been in Grants Pass and was disgusted by the enforcement mentality there. Watch this superb documentary video to get an understanding of the local situation:
Last year, I wrote about my personal experience with police enforcement of a similar local ordinance in Port Townsend, Washington. Based on the existing US 9th Circuit judicial precedent, I convinced city officials to back off and cease their enforcement crackdown, see:
But let’s get back to the current case before the US Supreme Court.
The context of this case is extremely troubling – not only is the homeless problem huge and growing, there is a massive crackdown by State and local governments to criminalize poverty and homelessness.
And that disgraceful crackdown is about to get much, much worse. Watch this Trump statement to see what’s on the horizon: concentration camps:
We will ban urban camping…. Violators of these bans will be arrested….
We will open up large parcels of inexpensive land …. and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated.
(Chief Justice Roberts’ line of questions and hypothetical about “accessibility” to homeless shelters actually explored the concept of relocation to “tent cities” (see p. 80).
We’ve actually come to a point where lack of money is now a crime. Next stop: the poor house.
Where politicians openly attack the least among us and even propose jail and concentration camps for the poor and homeless.
It was sickening to read that transcript and follow the demented legal gymnastics of the radical right wing judges, as they attempted to uphold this local ordinance and authorize the criminalization of homelessness.
To hide behind absurd legal distinctions about whether homelessness was a “status” or a “conduct”, or whether a blanket or a tent defined “camping” is a cruel, perverse and twisted form of “thought”.
To find it a “very difficult policy problem” to determine if it is cruel and unusual punishment to jail desperate homeless people is shameful.
To question whether there’re is a “deeply entrenched liberty interest” in sleeping is absurd.
To posit the existence of a “necessity defense” – which seemed to satisfy Justice Gorsuch – is sickening. Period.
For a Justice of the US Supreme Court [Jackson] to have to make these kinds of observations is degrading to even have to read.
Justice Jackson had to say that sleeping is a “basic human need” and then posed a hypothetical about whether eating in public could be banned or criminalized. (see the transcript at page 22 and 29)
You know, it seems both cruel and unusual to punish people for acts that constitute basic human needs. […]
So is it your argument that the Eighth Amendment has nothing to say about how the City responds to such problems? I mean, suppose the City decided that it was going to execute homeless people.
But Justice Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts had no shame. They pressed on.
Barrett wanted to explore the blanket – “bedding materials” – camping – fires – tents – sleeping issues.
Justice Sotomayor had to squash that bullshit: (page 32):
… you’re not precluded from prohibiting fires. You’re not precluded from prohibiting tents. What’s at issue is are you prohibited from keeping — having someone wear a blanket anywhere in the city.
Your intent was to remove — stated by your mayor, intent is to remove every homeless person and give them no public space to sit down with a blanket or lay down with a blanket and fall asleep. …
Where do we put them [the homeless] if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this? Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves, not sleeping?
Still, they would not back down.
Chief Justice Roberts intervened and just changed the subject with this disgusting quip:
Is being a bank robber a status?
(Roberts later posed a hypothetical about a hungry person breaking into a food store. There were multiple comparisons to drug addicts. WTF is the matter with these people?)
I had to stop reading at this point, just 35 pages into a 168 page transcript.
So, let me reframe the issue:
Is being a twisted, heartless, right wing black robed fascist a death penalty eligible offense?
My sense is that the Court will uphold this ordinance which will precipitate a massive mad rush by State and local governments to further attack and criminalize the homeless.
In the increasingly likely event that Trump is elected in November – heckofajob Joe Biden! – we will see concentration camps for the homeless, migrants, drug addicts, mentally ill, and other “socialists” and ANTIFA and protesters Trump and his fascist followers hate.
Don’t say you didn’t know and you weren’t warned.
[End notes: There is no doubt that the intent of this law is the same as the US immigration policy of “deterrence”:, i.e. to make conditions so intolerable that people just leave town (disappear).
In terms of criminalization: I met men who were facing felony sexual misconduct charges for peeing outdoors.
Finally, again stating the obvious, the Justices are trying to make homelessness an individual failure, not a social problem.
Do we actually need to amend the Constitution to clarify that human beings have a fundamental right to dignity and that humiliation and punishment for social failures is cruel?
[Update – check out the Biden administration’s “enlightened” legal position: local solutions, poor laws, and charity. (p. 83-84)
And the — the problem of eating is addressed at the local level as the, you know, history and the poor law shows is that the community takes care of its own residents. And it’s common now as it was at the founding for churches and individuals and whatnot to offer their help, to charity in the community. And that’s what happens in Grants Pass. Various organizations feed — feed the — the homeless people. And there are social services to help the homeless people.
OMG and they don’t recognize the relationship with a dog: fuck these people:
JUSTICE ALITO: What if the person says I — I — yeah, I know there’s a bed available at the Gospel Rescue Mission but they won’t take my dog.
MR. KNEEDLER: I don’t think –– I don’t think the inability to take your dog to a shelter is — is a sufficient reason. There are shelters in some larger cities that may well
take pets, but —