Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 66

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CITY OF GRANTS PASS v. JOHNSON 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

for  free.”  920  F. 3d,  at  617,  and  n. 8.  The  District  Court 
here found that Grants Pass had “zero emergency shelter 
beds” and that Gospel Rescue Mission’s “138 beds would not 
be nearly enough to accommodate the at least 602 homeless
individuals in  Grants  Pass.”    App.  to  Pet.  for  Cert.  179a– 
180a.  The majority also asks: “[W]hat are people entitled 
to do and use in public spaces to ‘keep warm’ ”?  Ante, at 33. 
The District Court’s opinion also provided a clear answer:
They are permitted “bedding type materials to keep warm
and dry,” but cities can still “implement time and place re-
strictions  for  when  homeless  individuals  . . .  must  have 
their belonging[s] packed up.”  App. to Pet. for Cert. 199a.
Ultimately,  these  are  not  metaphysical  questions  but  fac-
tual ones.  See, e.g., 42 U. S. C. §11302 (defining “homeless,” 
“homeless  individual,”  and  “homeless  person”);  24  CFR 
§582.5 (defining “[a]n individual or family who lacks a fixed,
regular, and adequate nighttime residence”).

Just because the majority can list difficult questions that 
require answers, see ante, at 33, n. 8, does not absolve fed-
eral judges of the responsibility to interpret and enforce the 
substantive bounds of the Constitution.  The majority pro-
claims  that  this  dissent  “blinks  the  difficult  questions.” 
Ante, at 32.  The majority should open its eyes to available 
answers instead of throwing up its hands in defeat. 

C 
The majority next spars with a strawman in its discus-
sion of Powell v. Texas.  The Court in Powell considered the 
distinction between status and conduct but could not agree
on  a  controlling  rationale.    Four  Justices  concluded  that 
Robinson covered any “condition [the defendant] is power-
less  to  change,”  392  U. S.,  at  567  (Fortas,  J.,  dissenting),
and four Justices rejected that view.  Justice White, casting 
the  decisive  fifth  vote,  left  the  question  open  because  the 
defendant had “made no showing that he was unable to stay 
off the streets on the night in question.”  Id., at 554 (opinion