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Page Number: 68

24 

CITY OF GRANTS PASS v. JOHNSON 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

amicus briefs before us”); ante, at 14, n. 3 (listing certiorari-
stage amici).  No one contests that States, cities, and coun-
ties could benefit from this Court’s guidance.  Yet the ma-
jority relies on these amici to shift the goalposts and focus
on  policy  questions  beyond  the  scope  of  this case.  It  first 
declares  that  “[t]he  only  question  we  face  is  whether  one 
specific provision of the Constitution . . . prohibits the en-
forcement  of  public-camping  laws.”    Ante,  at  31.    Yet  it  
quickly shifts gears and claims that “the question this case 
presents is whether the Eighth Amendment grants federal 
judges primary responsibility for assessing those causes [of 
homelessness] and devising those responses.”  Ante, at 34. 
This sleight of hand allows the majority to abdicate its re-
sponsibility to answer the first (legal) question by declining 
to answer the second (policy) one.

The  majority  cites  various  amicus  briefs  to  amplify
Grants Pass’s belief that its homelessness crisis is intracta-
ble  absent  the  ability  to  criminalize  homelessness.    In  so 
doing, the majority chooses to see only what it wants.  Many 
of  those  stakeholders  support  the  narrow  rule  in  Martin. 
See, e.g., Brief for City and County of San Francisco et al. 
as Amici Curiae 4 (“[U]nder the Eighth Amendment  . . . a 
local  municipality  may  not  prohibit  sleeping—a  biological
necessity—in  all  public  spaces  at  all  times  and  under  all 
conditions, if there is no alternative space available in the 
jurisdiction for unhoused people to sleep”); Brief for City of 
Los Angeles as Amicus Curiae 1 (“The City agrees with the 
broad  premise  underlying  the  Martin  and  Johnson  deci-
sions: when a person has no other place to sleep, sleeping 
at night in a public space should not be a crime leading to 
an arrest, criminal conviction, or jail”); California Brief 2–3 
(“[T]he Constitution does not allow the government to pun-
ish people for the status of being homeless.  Nor should it 
allow the government to effectively punish the status of be-
ing homeless by making it a crime in all events for someone 
with no other options to sleep outside on public property at