Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 29

24 

CITY OF GRANTS PASS v. JOHNSON 

Opinion of the Court 

To be sure, and once more,  a variety of other legal doc-
trines and constitutional provisions work to protect those in 
our  criminal  justice  system  from  a  conviction.  Like  some 
other jurisdictions, Oregon recognizes a “necessity ” defense
to certain criminal charges.  It may be that defense extends
to charges for illegal camping when it comes to those with 
nowhere else to go.  See State v. Barrett, 302 Ore. App. 23,
28, 460 P. 3d 93, 96 (2020) (citing Ore. Rev. Stat. §161.200). 
Insanity,  diminished-capacity,  and  duress  defenses  also
may  be  available  in  many  jurisdictions.    See  Powell,  392 
U. S., at 536.  States and cities are free as well to add addi-
tional substantive protections.  Since this litigation began,
for example, Oregon itself has adopted a law specifically ad-
dressing  how  far  its  municipalities  may  go  in  regulating
public  camping.  See,  e.g.,  Ore.  Rev.  Stat.  §195.530(2) 
(2023).  For  that  matter,  nothing  in  today’s  decision  pre-
vents States, cities, and counties from going a step further 
and declining to criminalize public camping altogether.  For 
its part, the Constitution provides many additional limits
on  state  prosecutorial  power,  promising  fair  notice  of  the 
laws and equal treatment under them, forbidding selective
prosecutions, and much more besides.  See Part II–A, supra; 
and n. 5, supra.  All this represents only a small sample of 
the  legion  protections  our  society  affords  a  presumptively 
free individual from a criminal conviction.  But aside from 
Robinson, a case directed to a highly unusual law that con-
demned  status  alone,  this  Court  has  never  invoked  the 
Eighth  Amendment’s  Cruel  and  Unusual  Punishments
Clause to perform that function. 

D 
Not only did Powell decline to extend Robinson to “invol-
untary” acts, it stressed the dangers that would likely at-
tend any attempt to do so.  Were the Court to pursue that
path in the name of the Eighth Amendment, Justice Mar-
shall  warned,  “it  is  difficult  to  see  any  limiting  principle