In a major opinion affecting how cities can address homelessness, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that an Oregon city's enforcement of a public camping ban against the "involuntarily" homeless does not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishment.
"The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause focuses on the question what 'method or kind of punishment' a government may impose after a criminal conviction, not on the question whether a government may criminalize particular behavior in the first place," wrote Justice Neal Gorsuch for the majority in the case of City of Grants Pass v. Johnson.
