The Department of Justice is arguing that criminalizing homeless people who sleep in public places is unconstitutional.
Specifically, it is unconstitutional when there is insufficient shelter space, causing the homeless person to sleep in a public place, the agency said in a “statement of interest” on Thursday. The statement was filed in federal district court in Idaho in a case brought by homeless plaintiffs who were convicted under Boise ordinances that criminalize sleeping or camping in public.
The case, Bell v. City of Boise et al., was filed in the District of Idaho in 2009.
“Many homeless individuals are unable to secure shelter space because city shelters are over capacity or inaccessible to people with disabilities,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division. “Criminally prosecuting those individuals for something as innocent as sleeping, when they have no safe, legal place to go, violates their constitutional rights. Moreover, enforcing these ordinances is poor public policy.”
According to Gupta, putting homeless people into the criminal justice system does more harm than good, imposing “further burdens on scarce judicial and correctional resources” and having “long-lasting and devastating effects on individuals’ lives.”
Ordinances in Boise prohibit sleeping or camping in public outdoor places, which the plaintiffs argue violate the Eighth Amendment — which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment — on nights when there is insufficient shelter space to accommodate the city’s homeless population.
According to the Justice Department, “[i]t should be uncontroversial that punishing conduct that is a universal and unavoidable consequence of being human violates the Eighth Amendment … Sleeping is a life-sustaining activity — i.e., it must occur at some time in some place. If a person literally has nowhere else to go, then enforcement of the anti-camping ordinance against that person criminalizes her for being homeless.”
