Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 73.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

29 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

their right to travel”); see also ante, at 21, n. 5 (noting that 
these Ordinances “may implicate due process and our prec-
edents regarding selective prosecution”). 

D 

The Ordinances might also implicate other legal issues. 
See,  e.g.,  Trop,  356  U. S.,  at  101  (plurality  opinion)  (con-
cluding that a law that banishes people threatens “the total
destruction of the individual’s status in organized society”);
Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21 (describing the
Ordinances here as “akin to a form of banishment, a meas-
ure that is now generally recognized as contrary to our Na-
tion’s  legal  tradition”);  Lavan  v.  Los  Angeles,  693  F. 3d 
1022, 1029 (CA9 2012) (holding that a city violated home-
less plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights by seizing and de-
stroying property in an encampment, because “[v]iolation of 
a City ordinance does not vitiate the Fourth Amendment’s
protection of one’s property”).

The Court’s misstep today is confined to its application of 
Robinson.  It is quite possible, indeed likely, that these and 
similar ordinances will face more days in court. 

* 

* 

* 

Homelessness in America is a complex and heartbreaking 
crisis.  People  experiencing  homelessness  face  immense 
challenges, as do local and state governments.  Especially
in the face of these challenges, this Court has an obligation
to apply the Constitution faithfully and evenhandedly. 

The  Eighth  Amendment  prohibits  punishing  homeless-
ness by criminalizing sleeping outside when an individual 
has nowhere else to go.  It is cruel and unusual to apply any 
penalty “selectively to minorities whose numbers are few, 
who  are  outcasts  of  society,  and  who  are  unpopular,  but 
whom  society  is  willing  to  see  suffer  though  it  would  not 
countenance general application of the same penalty across
the board.”  Furman v. Georgia, 408 U. S. 238, 245 (1972)