Supreme Court Case to Overturn Major Ruling

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Now, diving into the main topic, just earlier this week, you had the attorney generals of 20 different states, collectively, file a briefing with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking them to fix a major loophole that's currently being exploited by homeless encampments across the U.S. And this briefing, as well as the case that it's attached to, has the potential to finally fix the homeless encampment problem that's been plaguing all of America for the past five years. However, in order to explain what this briefing is, what happened in this particular case, as well as what it means for the country going forward, let's back up for a quick moment and start at the very beginning, right after you take a super quick moment to smash those like and subscribe buttons, which will quite literally force the YouTube algorithm to share this video and this content out to ever more people. Now, to start with, this right here is what's known as a homeless encampment. And if you happen to live in a large city in America, well, then you're likely very well aware that homeless encampments are spreading, they're becoming bigger, and in some parts of the country, they are completely taking over the city streets. Especially on the West Coast, these tent cities are ubiquitous, with sometimes entire societies springing up around them, including unlicensed shops, hotels, brothels, stolen electricity, video games, vending machines, and so on. In fact, a Washington Post headline from two years ago described it perfectly, quote, homeless encampments are becoming a part of the American landscape. Now, one of the questions that most normal people have when they see these homeless encampments springing up everywhere, is why doesn't the police just shut them down? I mean, after all, they are illegal. Most normal taxpaying people understand that if you or I pitched a tent on a public street, well, inevitably, the police will be called on us. And indeed, most cities have laws that make these homeless camps illegal. However, what most people are not aware of is the fact that behind the scenes, for many, many years now, there has been a legal effort to stop the enforcement of the laws on the books. For instance, back in the year 2009, over in the city of Boise, Idaho, you had a homeless shelter that was shut down. And after this shelter closed, you had six individuals who were found sleeping on the street. And because sleeping on public property was in violation of the city's ordinances, they were given citations. However, instead of just moving along, these six individuals filed a lawsuit against the city of Boise, Idaho, arguing that the city's anti-camping laws violated the constitutional rights, specifically the rights under the Eighth Amendment. And just for your reference, the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads as follows, quote, excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. And so these six homeless individuals were arguing that these laws, which kept them from camping on the city streets, represented a cruel and unusual punishment. And wouldn't you know it, after nine years of going through the legal system, back in the year 2018, the case found itself in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which, for your reference, has jurisdiction over nine Western states, Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. And after reviewing the case, the Ninth Circuit wound up ruling in favor of the homeless. They found that the city's ordinances, which outlaw camping on public property, violated the Eighth Amendment of these homeless individuals. Or to be more specific, they ruled that, quote, the Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of criminal penalties for sitting, sleeping, or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter. And so what this ruling means in practice is that if a city doesn't have enough beds in their shelter system to put up every single homeless person, the city is not allowed to enforce the laws against public camping. Or as the court wrote it, quote, the government cannot prosecute homeless people for sleeping in public if there is a greater number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction than the number of available shelter spaces. OK, so this ruling was issued back in 2018, meaning in practical terms that for the past five years now, cities over in the West have essentially been handcuffed in terms of what they could do. And so because of this ruling, you had cities in the Western part of the country get a little bit, you can say, creative with how they dealt with their ever-growing homeless population. And so what you began to see is that cities started to criminalize other activities related to outdoor camping, which brings us neatly along to the case that found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. You see, there is a city in the southern part of Oregon called Grants Pass. It's a fairly small city located close to the Oregon-California border, and it has a population of only about 38,000 people. And like many cities over in the state of Oregon, Grants Pass began to have homeless encampments pop up with tents being pitched right there on city streets. However, because of that earlier ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the city of Grants Pass attempted to use an administrative approach to deal with the problem. The city enforced their public camping ordinance through civil administrative fines. The city's ordinance criminalized repeated violations after administrative fines were issued and prohibited the use of certain sleeping accessories, such as blankets and pillows. And so they tried to work around the contours of the earlier ruling, meaning that for one, in the city of Grants Pass, you weren't allowed to use tents, blankets, and pillows when sleeping on the street. And secondly, you could be given a fine for sleeping on the street, and if you don't deal with a fine, you can get a criminal penalty. Their law was essentially a workaround to deal with the earlier ruling that came down from the Ninth Circuit. Instead of dealing with these people criminally, they were using administrative enforcement. And so the city began to hand out tickets and fines to these homeless individuals who were breaking the law by sleeping on the street. However, what happened was that three of these homeless people, they filed a lawsuit against the city, arguing that the laws which fined them for sleeping in public were, just like in the previous case, a violation of their Eighth Amendment rights. Specifically, it was an excessive fine as well as a cruel and unusual punishment. And once you know it, the trial judge agreed with the homeless plaintiffs. Quote, the trial court judge agreed with the plaintiffs, finding parts of the city's ordinances unconstitutional in light of the precedent set in the Boise case, and issued an injunction prohibiting the city from enforcement. The court determined that although the earlier Boise case only involved criminal prosecution, administrative enforcement that ultimately could result in criminal enforcement also violates the Eighth Amendment, and that certain basic sleeping elements were within the protection under the precedent. Meaning, in plain English, that if you have people sleeping there on public streets, you really cannot do anything. Now, the city of Grants Pass appealed that decision, going all the way up once again to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And once again, the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the homeless, and they expanded their earlier decision to, quote, cover not only the criminal enforcement of ordinances concerning sleeping in public, but also administrative enforcement that could result in criminal enforcement, and redefining the term sleeping to include rudimentary forms of protection from the elements, as well as overnight sleeping in vehicles. Did you know that 91% of all cyber attacks begin with the victim receiving a simple email? And also, did you know that these big tech companies, as well as the governments of many different nations, are spying on your online activity? 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And best of all, right now, they're running a special promo. To our viewers, if you use promo code Roman20, you can save 20% off all their services for the next five years. So check them out. The link will be down in the description box below. Use promo code Roman20 to save some money, and let's head on back to the studio. Meaning that according to this ruling, in addition to the previous ruling, not only can cities not criminally enforce these anti-camping laws, but also they can't enforce those laws through fines or anything else. Basically, because of this ruling that came out of the Ninth Circuit, as well as that previous ruling from 2018, if you live in the Western part of the US, and you have a homeless encampment spring up in your neighborhood, well, the police and the city can do nothing about it, even if they want to. Now, the lawyers representing the city of Grants Pass did not take this decision lying down. And instead, they appealed this ruling all the way up to the US Supreme Court, writing as a part of their appeal to the court that, quote, these decisions have erected a judicial roadblock preventing a comprehensive response to the growth of public encampments in the West. The consequences of inaction are dire for those living both in and near encampments, crime, fires, the re-emergence of medieval diseases, environmental harm, and record levels of drug overdoses and deaths on public streets. And then they simply asked the US Supreme Court to answer the following question, quote, does the enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property constitute cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment? And as such, this appeal is requesting that the US Supreme Court take up the case. Now, given the fact that homeless encampments have sprung up across the entirety of the country, the subject matter in this case is probably enough to warrant the US Supreme Court to accept the case for review. However, adding to the weight of its importance is the fact that just earlier this week, you had the attorney generals of 20 different states submit a petition asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit's decision. The 20 attorney generals, they submitted this court briefing here, you can see it up on your screen, wherein they said the following, quote, allowing encampments is cruel and creates more suffering than the alternative. While being mindful of the health and safety of both the homeless population and that of the greater community, many issues still must be resolved by the Supreme Court to clarify what other efforts may be made within the bounds of the law. The questions raised by this case are of paramount importance to local governments and warrant this court's thoughtful attention. Also, in a news release that accompanied this court filing, you had the attorney general of Montana add that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has made the states essentially powerless to deal with the problem of homelessness. Now, these 20 attorney generals who signed on to this court briefing were all from Republican-led states. That's really not that surprising. However, what is surprising is the fact that California Governor Gavin Newsom joined these conservative states. Governor Newsom, he filed his own appeal asking the US Supreme Court to take up the case. And in a statement alongside his appeal, here was what Governor Newsom had to say, quote, while I agree with the basic principle that a city shouldn't criminalize homeless individuals for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go within the city's boundaries, courts continue to reach well beyond that narrow limit to block any number of reasonable efforts to protect homeless individuals and the broader public from the harms of uncontrolled encampments. Courts have tied the hands of state and local governments that seek to use common sense approaches to clean our streets and provide help for unhoused Californians living in inhumane conditions. Additionally, when he was speaking with Politico on this matter just earlier this month, Gavin Newsom added this, quote, I hope this goes to the Supreme Court. And that's a heck of a statement from a progressive Democrat. It's gone too far. People's lives are at risk. And so there you have it. Five years ago, the extremely liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals helped to create a situation that led to the homeless encampment problem that we currently have in the country. And it's gotten so bad that pretty much everyone on the West Coast, conservative and liberal, is clamoring for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and allow them to once again enforce the laws that are already on the books. Now, in terms of the next steps, the U.S. Supreme Court has until early October to make a decision as to whether they'll take on the case or not. So essentially within the next two weeks, we'll know whether they accepted the case. And then if they decide to take on the case, well, on average, it takes the U.S. Supreme Court several months or sometimes even longer than a year to actually decide on the issue, meaning that potentially by the year 2024, we could have a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court which would allow local cities to once again enforce their anti-camping laws. And perhaps cities like San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle and all the rest of them can actually get cleaned up. Although on the flip side, if the court decides to not take up the case or if they take it up and rule in favor of the homeless, well, then very likely the homeless encampments will only continue to grow ever larger. We'll have to wait and see what actually happens. Regardless, if you'd like to read the details from anything that we discussed in today's episode, I'll throw all those documents. They'll be down in the description box for you to peruse at your own leisure. And then lastly, as I mentioned at the top of the episode as well, if you are indeed sick and tired of all the censorship on this platform, well, you're in luck because as I mentioned earlier, The Epoch Times has recently extended its awesome sale on subscriptions, just 25 cents a week for the whole year, which if you do the math, works itself out to just be a single dollar a month. 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