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18 

CITY OF GRANTS PASS v. JOHNSON 

Opinion of the Court 

In Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660 (1962), the plain-
tiffs and the dissent observe, this Court addressed a chal-
lenge  to  a  criminal  conviction  under  a  California  statute 
providing that “ ‘[n]o person shall . . . be addicted to the use 
of narcotics.’ ”  Ibid., n. 1.  In response to that challenge, the
Court invoked the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause 
to hold that California could not enforce its law making “the
‘status’ of narcotic addiction a criminal offense.”  Id., at 666. 
The Court recognized that “imprisonment for ninety days is 
not, in the abstract, a punishment which is either cruel or
unusual.”  Id., at 667.  But, the Court reasoned, when pun-
ishing  “ ‘status,’ ”  “[e]ven  one  day  in  prison  would  be  . . . 
cruel and unusual.”  Id., at 666–667. 

In doing so, the Court stressed the limits of its decision.
It would have ruled differently, the Court said, if California 
had sought to convict the defendant for, say, the knowing
or intentional “use of narcotics, for their purchase, sale, or
possession, or for antisocial or disorderly behavior resulting 
from their administration.”  Id., at 666.  In fact, the Court 
took pains to emphasize that it did not mean to cast doubt 
on the States’ “broad power” to prohibit behavior like that, 
even by those, like the defendant, who suffered from addic-
tion.  Id., at 664, 667–668.  The only problem, as the Court 
saw it, was that California’s law did not operate that way.
Instead, it made the mere status of being an addict a crime. 
Id.,  at  666–667.    And  it  was  that  feature  of  the  law,  the 
Court held, that went too far. 

Reaching that conclusion under the banner of the Eighth
Amendment may have come as a surprise to the litigants.
Mr.  Robinson  challenged  his  conviction  principally  on  the
ground that it offended the Fourteenth Amendment’s guar-
antee of due process of law.  As he saw it, California’s law 
violated due process because it purported to make unlawful 
a  “status”  rather  than  the  commission  of  any  “volitional 
act.”  See  Brief  for  Appellant  in  Robinson  v.  California, 
O. T. 1961, No. 61–554, p. 13 (Robinson Brief ).