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20 

CITY OF GRANTS PASS v. JOHNSON 

Opinion of the Court 

State may criminalize to begin with.  It was a view unprec-
edented in the history of the Court before 1962.  In dissent, 
Justice White lamented that the majority had embraced an
“application  of  ‘cruel  and  unusual  punishment’  so  novel
that” it could not possibly be “ascribe[d] to the Framers of
the Constitution.”  370 U. S., at 689.  Nor, in the 62 years
since Robinson, has this Court once invoked it as authority
to decline the enforcement of any criminal law, leaving the
Eighth Amendment instead to perform its traditional func-
tion of addressing the punishments that follow a criminal 
conviction. 

Still, no one has asked us to reconsider Robinson.  Nor do 
we  see  any  need  to  do  so  today.   Whatever  its  persuasive
force as an interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, it can-
not sustain the Ninth Circuit’s course since Martin.  In Rob-
inson,  the  Court  expressly  recognized  the  “broad  power”
States  enjoy  over  the  substance  of  their  criminal  laws, 
stressing that they may criminalize knowing or intentional
drug use even by those suffering from addiction.  370 U. S., 
at 664, 666.  The Court held only that a State may not crim-
inalize the “ ‘status’ ” of being an addict.  Id., at 666.  In crim-
inalizing a mere status, Robinson stressed, California had 
taken  a  historically  anomalous  approach  toward  criminal 
liability.  One, in fact, this Court has not encountered since 
Robinson itself. 

Public camping ordinances like those before us are noth-
ing like the law at issue in Robinson.  Rather than crimi-
nalize  mere  status,  Grants  Pass  forbids  actions  like  “oc-
cupy[ing] a campsite” on public property “for the purpose of 
maintaining a temporary place to live.”  Grants Pass Mu-
nicipal  Code  §§5.61.030,  5.61.010;  App.  to  Pet.  for  Cert. 
221a–222a.  Under the city’s laws, it makes no difference 
whether the charged defendant is homeless, a backpacker 
on vacation passing through town, or a student who aban-
dons his dorm room to camp out in protest on the lawn of a 
municipal building.  See Part I–C, supra; Blake v. Grants