Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 38.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

33 

Opinion of the Court 

place to go”?  What kind of “adequate” shelter must a city 
provide to avoid being forced to allow people to camp in its 
parks and on its sidewalks?  And what are people entitled
to  do  and  use  in  public  spaces  to  “keep  warm”  and  fulfill 
other “biological necessities”?8 

Those  unavoidable  questions  have  plunged  courts  and 
cities across the Ninth Circuit into waves of litigation.  And 
without anything in the Eighth Amendment to guide them, 
any  answers  federal  judges  can  offer  (and  have  offered) 
come,  as  Justice  Marshall  foresaw,  only  by  way  of  “fiat.” 
Powell, 392 U. S., at 534.  The dissent cannot escape that
hard truth.  Nor can it escape the fact that, far from nar-
rowing Martin, it would expand its experiment from one cir-
cuit to the entire country—a development without any prec-
edent  in  this  Court’s  history.    One  that  would  authorize 

—————— 

8 The dissent brushes aside these questions, declaring that “available 
answers” exist in the decisions below.  Post, at 22.  But the dissent misses 
the point.  The problem, as Justice Marshall discussed, is not that it is
impossible for someone to dictate answers to these questions.  The prob-
lem is that nothing in the Eighth Amendment gives federal judges the
authority  or  guidance  they  need  to  answer  them  in  a  principled  way. 
Take  just  two  examples.  First,  the dissent  says,  a  city seeking  to  ban
camping must provide “adequate” shelter for those with “no place to go.” 
Post, at 21–22.  But it never says what qualifies as “adequate” shelter. 
Ibid.  And, as we have seen, cities and courts across the Ninth Circuit 
have  struggled  mightily  with  that  question,  all  with  nothing  in  the 
Eighth Amendment to guide their work.  Second, the dissent seems to 
think that, if a city lacks enough “adequate” shelter, it must permit “ ‘bed-
ding’ ” in public spaces, but not campfires, tents, or “ ‘public urination or 
defecation.’ ”  Post, at 15, 21–22, 24.  But where does that rule come from, 
the  federal  register?    See  post,  at  22.  After  Martin,  again  as  we  have 
seen, many courts have taken a very different view.  The dissent never 
explains why it disagrees with those courts.  Instead, it merely quotes
the district court’s opinion in this case that announced a rule it seems 
the dissent happens to prefer.  By elevating Martin over our own prece-
dents and the Constitution’s original public meaning, the dissent faces 
difficult  choices  that  cannot  be  swept  under  the  rug—ones  that  it  can 
resolve not by anything found in the Eighth Amendment, only by fiat.