SCVNews.com | SCOTUS restores local camping enforcement authority

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 majority decision, recently issued a ruling that will increase the city of Santa Clarita’s authority to enforce public camping ordinances, which govern where homeless people can camp and sleep.

Grants Pass v. Johnson is a case argued by the Ninth Circuit Supreme Court in April and decided on June 28 in favor of the city of Grants Pass, Oregon.

The court found that a Grants Pass ordinance that made camping on public land illegal was not unconstitutional.

Most opinions were based on information provided by numerous law enforcement agencies, city and county authorities.

The court relied on various amicus curiae briefs to obtain factual information about homeless people and the challenges of addressing homelessness. Specifically, the court relied on information from the following amicus curiae cities: Chino, Fillmore, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Glendora, Huntington Beach, Murrieta, Newport Beach, Orange, Roseville, Santa Ana, Santa Clarita, San Clemente, and Orange County.

The Supreme Court has upheld the city of Grants Pass’s camping regulations, ruling that the regulations do not violate the “cruel and unusual” clause of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan dissented from the decision, which effectively ended more than five years of legal protections for people sleeping rough in states like California.

These protections were established in 2019 by the Ninth Circuit Court in Martin v. Boise. Martin v. Boise ruled that enforcing public camping regulations against homeless people without adequate shelter beds violates the Eighth Amendment.

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