Click here to download a copy of PRI’s amicus brief in the case
PRI’s amicus brief presents two core arguments for why the Court should overturn the 9th Circuit ruling and allow Grants Pass and other cities to enforce anti-encampment ordinances:
- Anti-Vagrancy Laws Have a Long History of Enforcement: As noted in the brief, “anti-vagrancy laws come with a long historical pedigree spanning periods before, during, and after the adoption of the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. Further, punishment for violating anti-vagrancy laws issued more than 100 years ago “were often far more severe than the mild penalties at issue here yet were not denounced as cruel and unusual.”
- California’s Homeless Problem Is Too Complex for Narrow Policy Choices: The brief also objects to the Ninth Circuit “using narrowly confined notions of involuntary behavior or unavoidable choices as the touchstone for deeming even the mildest punishment to be disproportionately cruel and unusual,” which it argues “is an overly simplistic approach to a complex social problem.” PRI’s brief also makes the case that “inserting the unmoored policymaking of the federal judiciary into the mix is not the answer, either from a constitutional or policy-making perspective.”
PRI scholars are leading statewide voices writing about, and promoting market-based solutions to, California’s homeless crisis.
Most recently, PRI published a new Free Cities Center booklet, “Giving Housing Supply a Boost,” which argues that homelessness is a social problem compounded by exorbitant housing prices, and showcases private nonprofits like DignityMoves that are turning lives around more effectively than government. Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, who is suing the city of Sacramento over its failure to enforce anti-homelessness laws, was a featured speaker at PRI’s recent “California Ideas in Action” conference.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson on April 22. PRI’s amicus curiae brief was prepared and filed by Erik Jaffe of Scherr | Jaffe LLP.
