Opinion ID: 3036957
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Eighth Amendment Prohibition on Cruel

Text: and Unusual Punishment The district court erred by not engaging in a more thorough analysis of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence under Robinson 4442 JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962), and Powell v. Texas, 392 U.S. 514 (1968), when it held that the only relevant inquiry is whether the ordinance at issue punishes status as opposed to conduct, and that homelessness is not a constitutionally cognizable status. The district court relied exclusively on the analysis of Robinson and Powell by another district court in Joyce v. City and County of San Francisco, in which plaintiffs challenged certain aspects of San Francisco’s comprehensive homelessness program on Eighth Amendment grounds. 846 F. Supp. 843 (N.D. Cal. 1994). Joyce, however, was based on a very different factual underpinning than is present here. Called the “Matrix Program,” the homelessness program was “ ‘an interdepartmental effort . . . [utilizing] social workers and health workers . . . [and] offering shelter, medical care, information about services and general assistance.’ ” Id. at 847 (alterations and omissions in original). One element of the program consisted of the “Night Shelter Referral” program conducted by the Police Department, which handed out “referrals” to temporary shelters. Id. at 848. The City demonstrated that of 3,820 referral slips offered to men, only 1,866 were taken and only 678 used. Id. The Joyce plaintiffs made only the conclusory allegation that there was insufficient shelter, id. at 849; they did not make the strong evidentiary showing of a substantial shortage of shelter Appellants make here. Moreover, the preliminary injunction plaintiffs sought in Joyce was so broad as to enjoin enforcement of prohibitions on camping or lodging in public parks and on “ ‘life-sustaining activities such as sleeping, sitting or remaining in a public place,’ ” which might also include such antisocial conduct as public urination and aggressive panhandling. Id. at 851 (emphasis added). Reasoning that plaintiffs’ requested injunction was too broad and too difficult to enforce, and noting the preliminary nature of its findings based on the record at an early stage in the proceedings, the district court denied the injunction. Id. at 851-53. JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 4443 The Joyce court also concluded that homelessness was not a status protectable under the Eighth Amendment, holding that it was merely a constitutionally noncognizable “condition.” Id. at 857-58. We disagree with the analysis of Robinson and Powell conducted by both the district court in Joyce and the district court in the case at bar. The City could not expressly criminalize the status of homelessness by making it a crime to be homeless without violating the Eighth Amendment, nor can it criminalize acts that are an integral aspect of that status. Because there is substantial and undisputed evidence that the number of homeless persons in Los Angeles far exceeds the number of available shelter beds at all times, including on the nights of their arrest or citation, Los Angeles has encroached upon Appellants’ Eighth Amendment protections by criminalizing the unavoidable act of sitting, lying, or sleeping at night while being involuntarily homeless. A closer analysis of Robinson and Powell instructs that the involuntariness of the act or condition the City criminalizes is the critical factor delineating a constitutionally cognizable status, and incidental conduct which is integral to and an unavoidable result of that status, from acts or conditions that can be criminalized consistent with the Eighth Amendment. Our analysis begins with Robinson, which announced limits on what the state can criminalize consistent with the Eighth Amendment. In Robinson, the Supreme Court considered whether a state may convict an individual for violating a statute making it a criminal offense to “ ‘be addicted to the use of narcotics.’ ” 370 U.S. at 660 (quoting Cal. Health & Safety Code § 11721). The trial judge had instructed the jury that “[t]o be addicted to the use of narcotics is said to be a status or condition and not an act. It is a continuing offense and differs from most other offenses in the fact that [it] is chronic rather than acute; that it continues after it is complete and subjects the offender 4444 JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES to arrest at any time before he reforms. . . . All that the People must show is . . . that while in the City of Los Angeles [Robinson] was addicted to the use of narcotics . . . .” Id. at 662-63 (second alteration and third omission in original). The Supreme Court reversed Robinson’s conviction, reasoning: It is unlikely that any State at this moment in history would attempt to make it a criminal offense for a person to be mentally ill, or a leper, or to be afflicted with a venereal disease. . . . [I]n the light of contemporary human knowledge, a law which made a crim- inal offense of such a disease would doubtless be universally thought to be an infliction of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. We cannot but consider the statute before us as of the same category. In this Court counsel for the State recognized that narcotic addiction is an illness. Indeed, it is apparently an illness which may be contracted innocently or involuntarily. We hold that a state law which imprisons a person thus afflicted as a criminal, even though he has never touched any narcotic drug within the State or been guilty of any irregular behavior there, inflicts a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Fourteenth Amend- ment. Id. at 666-67 (citation and footnotes omitted). [10] The Court did not articulate the principles that undergird its holding. At a minimum, Robinson establishes that the state may not criminalize “being”; that is, the state may not punish a person for who he is, independent of anything he has done. See, e.g., Powell, 392 U.S. at 533 (Marshall, J., plurality JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 4445 opinion) (stating that Robinson requires an actus reus before the state may punish). However, as five Justices would later make clear in Powell, Robinson also supports the principle that the state cannot punish a person for certain conditions, either arising from his own acts or contracted involuntarily, or acts that he is powerless to avoid. Powell, 392 U.S. at 567 (Fortas, J., dissenting) (endorsing this reading of Robinson); id. at 550 n.2 (White, J., concurring in the judgment) (same, but only where acts predicate to the condition are remote in time); see Robinson, 370 U.S. at 666-67 (stating that punishing a person for having a venereal disease would be unconstitutional, and noting that drug addiction “may be contracted innocently or involuntarily”). Six years after its decision in Robinson, the Supreme Court considered the case of Leroy Powell, who had been charged with violating a Texas statute making it a crime to “ ‘get drunk or be found in a state of intoxication in any public place.’ ” Powell, 392 U.S. at 517 (Marshall, J., plurality opinion) (quoting Tex. Penal Code Ann. art. 477 (Vernon 1952)). The trial court found that Powell suffered from the disease of chronic alcoholism, which “ ‘destroys the afflicted person’s will’ ” to resist drinking and leads him to appear drunk in public involuntarily. Id. at 521. Nevertheless, the trial court summarily rejected Powell’s constitutional defense and found him guilty. See id. at 558 (Fortas, J., dissenting). On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, Powell argued that the Eighth Amendment prohibited “punish[ing] an ill person for conduct over which he has no control.” Brief for Appellant at 6, Powell, 392 U.S. 514 (No. 405), 1967 WL 113841. In a 4-1-4 decision, the Court affirmed Powell’s conviction. The four Justices joining the plurality opinion interpreted Robinson to prohibit only the criminalization of pure status and not to limit the criminalization of conduct. Powell, 392 U.S. at 533 (Marshall, J., plurality opinion). The plurality then declined to extend the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause’s protections to any involuntary conduct, citing slip4446 JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES pery slope concerns, id. at 534-35, and considerations of federalism and personal accountability, id. at 535-36. Because Powell was convicted not for his status as a chronic alcoholic, but rather for his acts of becoming intoxicated and appearing in public, the Powell plurality concluded that the Clause as interpreted by Robinson did not protect him. Id. at 532. In contrast, the four Justices in dissent read Robinson to stand for the proposition that “[c]riminal penalties may not be inflicted on a person for being in a condition he is powerless to change.” Id. at 567 (Fortas, J., dissenting). Applying Robinson to the facts of Powell’s case, the dissenters first described the predicate for Powell’s conviction as “the mere condition of being intoxicated in public” rather than any “acts,” such as getting drunk and appearing in public. Id. at 559. Next and more significantly, the dissenters addressed the involuntariness of Powell’s behavior, noting that Powell had “ ‘an uncontrollable compulsion to drink’ to the point of intoxication; and that, once intoxicated, he could not prevent himself from appearing in public places.” Id. at 568. Having found that the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, as interpreted by Robinson, protects against the criminalization of being in a condition one is powerless to avoid, see id. at 567, and because Powell was powerless to avoid public drunkenness, the dissenters concluded that his conviction should be reversed, see id. at 569-70. In his separate opinion, Justice White rejected the plurality’s proposed status-conduct distinction, finding it similar to “forbidding criminal conviction for being sick with flu or epilepsy but permitting punishment for running a fever or having a convulsion.” Id. at 548-49 (White, J., concurring in the judgment). Justice White read Robinson to stand for the principle that “it cannot be a crime to have an irresistible compulsion to use narcotics,” id. at 548, and concluded that “[t]he proper subject of inquiry is whether volitional acts [sufficiently proximate to the condition] brought about the” criminalized conduct or condition, id. at 550 n.2. JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 4447 Justice White concluded that given the holding in Robinson, “the chronic alcoholic with an irresistible urge to consume alcohol should not be punishable for drinking or being drunk.” Id. at 549. For those chronic alcoholics who lack homes, a showing could be made that resisting drunkenness is impossible and that avoiding public places when intoxicated is also impossible. As applied to them this statute is in effect a law which bans a single act for which they may not be convicted under the Eighth Amendment—the act of getting drunk. Id. at 551. This position is consistent with that of the Powell dissenters, who quoted and agreed with Justice White’s standard, see id. at 568 n.31 (Fortas, J., dissenting), and stated that Powell’s conviction should be reversed because his public drunkenness was involuntary, id. at 570. Justice White’s Powell opinion also echoes his prior dissent in Robinson. In Robinson, Justice White found no Eighth Amendment violation for two reasons: First, because he did “not consider [Robinson’s] conviction to be a punishment for having an illness or for simply being in some status or condition, but rather a conviction for the regular, repeated or habitual use of narcotics immediately prior to his arrest,” Robinson, 370 U.S. at 686 & nn.2-3 (White, J., dissenting) (discussing jury instructions regarding addiction and substantial evidence of Robinson’s frequent narcotics use in the days prior to his arrest); and second, and most importantly for understanding his opinion in Powell, because the record did not suggest that Robinson’s drug addiction was involuntary, see id. at 685. According to Justice White, “if [Robinson] was convicted for being an addict who had lost his power of selfcontrol, I would have other thoughts about this case.” Id. Justice White and the Powell dissenters shared a common view of the importance of involuntariness to the Eighth 4448 JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES Amendment inquiry. They differed only on two issues. First, unlike the dissenters, Justice White believed Powell had not demonstrated that his public drunkenness was involuntary. Compare Powell, 392 U.S. at 553 (White, J., concurring in the judgment) (“[N]othing in the record indicates that [Powell] could not have done his drinking in private . . . . Powell had a home and wife, and if there were reasons why he had to drink in public or be drunk there, they do not appear in the record.”), with id. at 568 n.31 (Fortas, J., dissenting) (“I believe these findings must fairly be read to encompass facts that my Brother White agrees would require reversal, that is, that for appellant Powell, ‘resisting drunkenness’ and ‘avoiding public places when intoxicated’ on the occasion in question were ‘impossible.’ ”). Second, Justice White rejected the dissent’s attempt to distinguish conditions from acts for Eighth Amendment purposes. See id. at 550 n.2 (White, J., concurring in the judgment). We agree with Justice White that analysis of the Eighth Amendment’s substantive limits on criminalization “is not advanced by preoccupation with the label ‘condition.’ ” Id. One could define many acts as being in the condition of engaging in those acts, for example, the act of sleeping on the sidewalk is indistinguishable from the condition of being asleep on the sidewalk. “ ‘Being’ drunk in public is not far removed in time from the acts of ‘getting’ drunk and ‘going’ into public,” and there is no meaningful “line between the man who appears in public drunk and that same man five minutes later who is then ‘being’ drunk in public.” Id. The dissenters themselves undermine their proposed distinction by suggesting that criminalizing involuntary acts that “typically flow from . . . the disease of chronic alcoholism” would violate the Eighth Amendment, as well as by stating that “[i]f an alcoholic should be convicted for criminal conduct which is not a characteristic and involuntary part of the pattern of the disease as it afflicts him, nothing herein would prevent his punishment.” Id. at 559 n.2 (Fortas, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 4449 [11] Notwithstanding these differences, five Justices in Powell understood Robinson to stand for the proposition that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the state from punishing an involuntary act or condition if it is the unavoidable consequence of one’s status or being. See id. at 548, 550 n.2, 551 (White, J., concurring in the judgment); id. at 567 (Fortas, J., dissenting); see also Robert L. Misner, The New Attempt Laws: Unsuspected Threat to the Fourth Amendment, 33 Stan. L. Rev. 201, 219 (1981) (“[T]he consensus [of White and the dissenters apparently] was that an involuntary act does not suffice for criminal liability.”). Although this principle did not determine the outcome in Powell, it garnered the considered support of a majority of the Court. Because the conclusion that certain involuntary acts could not be criminalized was not dicta, see United States v. Johnson, 256 F.3d 895, 915, 914-16 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (Kozinski, J., concurring) (narrowly defining dicta as “a statement [that] is made casually and without analysis, . . . uttered in passing without due consideration of the alternatives, or . . . merely a prelude to another legal issue that commands” the court’s full attention), we adopt this interpretation of Robinson and the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause as persuasive authority. We also note that in the absence of any agreement between Justice White and the plurality on the meaning of Robinson and the commands of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, the precedential value of the Powell plurality opinion is limited to its precise facts. “When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds . . . .” Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977) (omission in original) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Kent Greenawalt, “Uncontrollable” Actions and the Eighth Amendment: Implications of Powell v. Texas, 69 Colum. L. Rev. 927, 931 (1969) (“[T]he dissent comes closer to speaking for a majority of the Court than does the plurality opinion.”). 4450 JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES [12] Following Robinson’s holding that the state cannot criminalize pure status, and the agreement of five Justices in Powell that the state cannot criminalize certain involuntary conduct, there are two considerations relevant to defining the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause’s limits on the state’s power to criminalize. The first is the distinction between pure status—the state of being—and pure conduct—the act of doing. The second is the distinction between an involuntary act or condition and a voluntary one. Accordingly, in determining whether the state may punish a particular involuntary act or condition, we are guided by Justice White’s admonition that “[t]he proper subject of inquiry is whether volitional acts brought about the ‘condition’ and whether those acts are sufficiently proximate to the ‘condition’ for it to be permissible to impose penal sanctions on the ‘condition.’ ” Powell, 392 U.S. at 550 n.2 (White, J., concurring in the judgment); see also Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 202 n.2 (1986) (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (quoting and endorsing this statement in discussing whether the Eighth Amendment limits the state’s ability to criminalize homosexual acts). [13] The Robinson and Powell decisions, read together, compel us to conclude that enforcement of section 41.18(d) at all times and in all places against homeless individuals who are sitting, lying, or sleeping in Los Angeles’s Skid Row because they cannot obtain shelter violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. As homeless individuals, Appellants are in a chronic state that may have been acquired “innocently or involuntarily.” Robinson, 370 U.S. at 667. Whether sitting, lying, and sleeping are defined as acts or conditions, they are universal and unavoidable consequences of being human. It is undisputed that, for homeless individuals in Skid Row who have no access to private spaces, these acts can only be done in public. In contrast to Leroy Powell, Appellants have made a substantial showing that they are “unable to stay off the streets on the night[s] in question.” Powell, 392 U.S. at 554 (White, J., concurring in the judgment). JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES 4451 In disputing our holding, the dissent veers off track by attempting to isolate the supposed “criminal conduct” from the status of being involuntarily homeless at night on the streets of Skid Row. Unlike the cases the dissent relies on, which involve failure to carry immigration documents, illegal reentry, and drug dealing, the conduct at issue here is involuntary and inseparable from status—they are one and the same, given that human beings are biologically compelled to rest, whether by sitting, lying, or sleeping. The cases the dissent cites do not control our reading of Powell and Robinson where, as here, an Eighth Amendment challenge concerns the involuntariness of a criminalized act or condition inseparable from status. See Johnson, 256 F.3d at 915 (“Where it is clear that a statement . . . is uttered in passing without due consideration of the alternatives, . . . it may be appropriate to re-visit the issue in a later case.”). The City and the dissent apparently believe that Appellants can avoid sitting, lying, and sleeping for days, weeks, or months at a time to comply with the City’s ordinance, as if human beings could remain in perpetual motion. That being an impossibility, by criminalizing sitting, lying, and sleeping, the City is in fact criminalizing Appellants’ status as homeless individuals. Similarly, applying Robinson and Powell, courts have found statutes criminalizing the status of vagrancy to be unconstitutional. For example, Goldman v. Knecht declared unconstitutional a Colorado statute making it a crime for “ ‘[a]ny person able to work and support himself’ ” to “ ‘be found loitering or strolling about, frequenting public places, . . . begging or leading an idle, immoral or profligate course of life, or not having any visible means of support.’ ” 295 F. Supp. 897, 899 n.2, 908 (D. Colo. 1969) (three-judge court); see also Wheeler v. Goodman, 306 F. Supp. 58, 59 n.1, 62, 66 (W.D.N.C. 1969) (three-judge court) (striking down as uncon- stitutional under Robinson a statute making it a crime to, inter alia, be able to work but have no property or “ ‘visible and known means’ ” of earning a livelihood), vacated on other grounds, 401 U.S. 987 (1971). These cases establish that the 4452 JONES v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES state may not make it an offense to be idle, indigent, or homeless in public places. Nor may the state criminalize conduct that is an unavoidable consequence of being homeless— namely sitting, lying, or sleeping on the streets of Los Angeles’s Skid Row. As Justice White stated in Powell, “[p]unishing an addict for using drugs convicts for addiction under a different name.” 392 U.S. at 548 (White, J., concurring in the judgment).