The issue of “camping bans,” which are common in cities across the nation, divided justices during oral arguments. The liberal justices were more sympathetic to the plight of homeless people, while the conservative justices asked more detailed questions.
Howe wrote:
Justice Clarence Thomas emphasized that the law at issue in Robinson barred both the use of drugs and being addicted to drugs. Do the city’s ordinances, Thomas asked, make it a crime to be homeless?
They do not, [Theane] Evangelis [the attorney representing the city] responded.
But other justices suggested that it was more difficult to draw the line between status and conduct, which under Robinson can be punished. Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, seemed to suggest that because someone who is homeless can instantly become “not homeless,” homelessness is not a status.
And Justice Samuel Alito indicated that although “status is different from conduct, … there are some instances of conduct that are closely tied to status or if homelessness is defined as simply lacking a place to stay in a particular night, they amount to the same thing.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked [Kelsi Brown] Corkran [the attorney representing the homeless individuals] whether it would violate the Eighth Amendment for the city to enforce its laws in other scenarios involving basic human needs like eating and using the bathroom. Could the city fine or arrest people who are homeless for stealing food or urinating or defecating in public?
would barring someone from using my kitchen for their hunger needs or peeing or pooping in my side yard for their normal excrement needs constitute “cruel and unusual punishment”? what about refusing to give a “unhoused adult” a ride to their local drug dealer of choice in MY CAR? does that constitute cruel and unusual punishment? WHERE DOES THIS QWAP STOP? it stops when we all tell the progressive leftist liberals NO! and mean it. not until.