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16 

CITY OF GRANTS PASS v. JOHNSON 

Opinion of the Court 

though  those  practices  had  by  then  “fallen  into  disuse.” 
Bucklew v. Precythe, 587 U. S. 119, 130 (2019) (citing 4 W.
Blackstone,  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England  370
(1769) (Blackstone)).  The Cruel and Unusual Punishments 
Clause was adopted to ensure that the new Nation would
never  resort  to  any  of  those  punishments  or  others  like 
them.  Punishments  like  those  were  “cruel”  because  they
were  calculated  to  “ ‘superad[d]’ ”  “ ‘terror,  pain,  or  dis-
grace.’ ”  587 U. S., at 130  (quoting 4 Blackstone 370).  And 
they  were  “unusual”  because,  by  the  time  of  the  Amend-
ment’s adoption, they had “long fallen out of use.”  587 U. S., 
at 130.  Perhaps some of those who framed our Constitution
thought,  as  Justice  Story  did,  that  a  guarantee  against
those kinds of “atrocious” punishments would prove “unnec-
essary”  because  no  “free  government”  would  ever  employ 
anything like them.  3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Con-
stitution of the United States §1896, p. 750 (1833).  But in 
adopting  the  Eighth  Amendment,  the  framers  took  no 
chances. 

All  that  would  seem  to  make  the  Eighth  Amendment  a 
poor  foundation  on  which  to  rest  the  kind  of  decree  the 
plaintiffs  seek  in  this  case  and  the  Ninth  Circuit  has  en-
dorsed since Martin.  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 or how it
may go about securing a conviction for that offense.  Powell, 
392  U. S.,  at  531–532.  To  the  extent  the  Constitution 
speaks to those other matters, it does so, as we have seen, 
in other provisions.

Nor,  focusing  on  the  criminal  punishments  Grant  Pass
imposes, can we say they qualify as cruel and unusual.  Re-
call that, under the city’s ordinances, an initial offense may 
trigger  a  civil  fine.    Repeat  offenses  may  trigger  an  order
temporarily barring an individual from camping in a public