In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, decided June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that enforcing laws against camping on public property does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, even when the people cited have nowhere else to sleep. The Grants Pass homeless camping ban ruling reversed the Ninth Circuit and effectively overruled Martin v. City of Boise, the 2018 decision that had blocked western cities from punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter was unavailable.1U.S. Supreme Court. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, No. 23-1752SCOTUSblog. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson
What the Ordinances Do
The Grants Pass laws at issue banned sleeping on public sidewalks, streets, and alleyways, prohibited “camping” on any public property (defined broadly enough to include a sleeping bag or blanket on the ground), and barred camping and overnight parking in city parks. A first violation carried a $295 fine, rising to $537.60 if unpaid. Two citations within a year triggered a 30-day park exclusion order, and violating that order was criminal trespass punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,250 fine.1U.S. Supreme Court. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, No. 23-1753State of Utah. Grants Pass Municipal Code Summary
The city has one adult overnight shelter, the Grants Pass Gospel Rescue Mission, a Christian nonprofit that can house up to 138 people. Residents must attend chapel twice daily, abstain from alcohol, drugs, and nicotine, and follow 29 rules including dressing “according to their birth gender.”4Grants Pass Gospel Rescue Mission. About the Mission5OPB. Homelessness Oregon Housing Shelter Grants Pass The county’s homeless population outnumbered available beds, and a district court had blocked enforcement of the ordinances on the ground that punishing people with no place to sleep amounted to punishing them for being homeless.1U.S. Supreme Court. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, No. 23-175
The Majority’s Reasoning
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the six-justice majority, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the majority held, is directed at the “method or kind of punishment” a government imposes after a conviction, not at whether the government may criminalize particular behavior at all.1U.S. Supreme Court. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, No. 23-175
The pivotal distinction was between punishing a person’s status and punishing conduct. In Robinson v. California (1962), the Court had struck down a law making it a crime to be a drug addict. The Grants Pass ordinances, the majority reasoned, regulate conduct: setting up or maintaining a campsite on public land. That conduct rule, on its face, applies to anyone, whether homeless, a backpacker, or a college student.1U.S. Supreme Court. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, No. 23-175
The Court also rejected the argument that the Eighth Amendment should shield conduct a person cannot avoid. Drawing on the 1968 plurality in Powell v. Texas, Gorsuch wrote that accepting an involuntariness defense would force federal judges to build a new “insanity test in constitutional terms,” deciding case by case who was truly unable to comply. That judgment, the majority said, belongs to elected officials. Martin, in Gorsuch’s phrase, had created “intolerable uncertainty” for cities.1U.S. Supreme Court. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, No. 23-1756Harvard Law Review. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson – Case Analysis
Justice Thomas filed a separate concurrence urging an even narrower reading of the Eighth Amendment, suggesting that Robinson was wrongly decided and that civil fines and park-exclusion orders are not the sort of punishment the clause was designed to reach.6Harvard Law Review. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson – Case Analysis
The Dissent
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, wrote that for a person with no access to shelter, sleeping is a “biological necessity,” and punishing that act is indistinguishable from punishing the status of being homeless. She called the majority’s status-versus-conduct line hollow and said the Court was “sparring with a Powell strawman.” The Ninth Circuit’s approach, she argued, had actually been narrow enough to let cities regulate encampments where beds were available.6Harvard Law Review. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson – Case Analysis
She catalogued the practical costs of criminalization: unpayable fines, lost belongings, damaged employment prospects, and cycles of jail time that make climbing out of homelessness harder. The systemic causes she named — “stagnant wages, lack of affordable housing, domestic violence” — were, she wrote, questions the Court had chosen to leave entirely to local politics.7Oxford Human Rights Hub. Indirect Criminalisation of Homelessness: Justice Sotomayor’s Dissenting Opinion1U.S. Supreme Court. City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, No. 23-175
What Has Changed Since the Ruling
Cities and states moved quickly. The ACLU counted more than 320 bills criminalizing aspects of homelessness introduced in the year after the decision, with nearly 220 becoming law.8ACLU. One Year Since Grants Pass: Tracking the Criminalization of Homelessness By January 2025, roughly 150 cities across 32 states had passed or strengthened outdoor camping bans, with about 40 more pending.9Stateline. Many More Cities Ban Sleeping Outside Despite a Lack of Shelter Space
California accounted for more than 40 new ordinances. In Fresno, sitting, lying, or camping on public property can carry up to a year in jail. In Indio, penalties reach $1,000 and six months in jail. Florida enacted a state law requiring every county and municipality to ban public camping, and beginning January 1, 2025, private residents and business owners in the state can sue local governments they believe are not enforcing those bans aggressively enough. Spokane Valley, Washington, upgraded unauthorized park use after dark from a civil infraction to a misdemeanor and expanded “camping” to include sleeping without any gear.9Stateline. Many More Cities Ban Sleeping Outside Despite a Lack of Shelter Space
Arizona voters approved Proposition 312 in November 2024, letting property owners seek tax reimbursements for nuisance costs when local governments fail to enforce anti-camping laws. In Illinois, roughly 40 municipalities introduced measures raising fines and criminal penalties.9Stateline. Many More Cities Ban Sleeping Outside Despite a Lack of Shelter Space10Shelterforce. In the Shadow of Grants Pass, Some Communities Reject Homeless Crackdowns
Other jurisdictions moved the opposite direction. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors reaffirmed in July 2024 that county jails would not be used to enforce camping bans. Pittsburgh required credible shelter offers before encampments could be cleared. Connecticut became the first state to ban “hostile architecture” on publicly accessible property. Morgantown, West Virginia, put a proposed camping ban up for a public vote after residents petitioned.10Shelterforce. In the Shadow of Grants Pass, Some Communities Reject Homeless Crackdowns9Stateline. Many More Cities Ban Sleeping Outside Despite a Lack of Shelter Space
What the Ruling Did Not Do
The Supreme Court removed the Eighth Amendment as a barrier to enforcing camping bans. It did not remove every legal constraint. State laws, disability protections, notice requirements, and reasonableness standards remain available to challenge how enforcement is carried out.
Grants Pass itself illustrates the point. Oregon’s House Bill 3115, passed in 2021, requires that any local rule regulating sleeping or keeping warm on public property be “objectively reasonable” based on the “totality of the circumstances as applied to all stakeholders, including persons experiencing homelessness.” A separate law, HB 3124, requires 72 hours’ notice before removing a campsite and 30 days of storage for personal property with any value.11City of Grants Pass, Oregon. State Law and Camping FAQ12League of Oregon Cities. Homelessness and Public Space
In January 2025, after new city leadership closed a sanctioned campsite on J Street and required tents to be removed each morning, Disability Rights Oregon and the Oregon Law Center sued in Josephine County Circuit Court. Their complaint argued the new rules failed HB 3115’s reasonableness standard and discriminated against people with disabilities under Oregon’s ADA-modeled statute.13OPB. Grants Pass Homeless Disabilities14Disability Rights Oregon. DRO v. Grants Pass
On March 28, 2025, Circuit Judge Sarah McGlaughlin issued a preliminary injunction barring the city from citing, arresting, fining, or prosecuting anyone for public-property camping until Grants Pass restored capacity to 150 tent spaces and made those sites accessible.15OPB. Grants Pass Camping Ban Halted16Oregon Capital Chronicle. Grants Pass To Provide 150 Camping Spaces, $60K in Services17OPB. Grants Pass Camping Spaces Disability Rights
Federal Direction After the Ruling
On July 24, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14321, “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.” The order directs federal agencies to prioritize grants for state and local governments that enforce bans on camping, loitering, squatting, and open drug use. It instructs the Department of Justice to seek reversal of court precedents and consent decrees limiting civil commitment of people living on the streets. It also ends federal support for the “Housing First” approach, requiring participation in substance-abuse treatment or mental-health services as a condition of HUD-funded housing assistance.18The White House. Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets19Bipartisan Policy Center. President Trump’s Executive Order on Homelessness: A Shift in Federal Policy
Moving the other direction, Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Maxwell Frost introduced the Housing Not Handcuffs Act (H.R. 4182) on June 26, 2025. The bill would prohibit civil or criminal punishment for sleeping on federal public lands when no safe shelter is available, for sharing food or water in public, and for occupying a lawfully parked vehicle. It was referred to four House committees and has not received a hearing.20GovInfo. H.R. 4182 – Housing Not Handcuffs Act21Office of Rep. Maxwell Frost. Frost, Jayapal Introduce Legislation To Decriminalize Homelessness
For anyone weighing the impact of the decision, the takeaway is narrow but consequential. The federal constitutional shield against camping-ban enforcement is gone. Whether and how a city can actually clear a camp now depends on the ordinance itself, on state statutes governing notice and reasonableness, on disability and civil-rights laws, and on the political choices local governments make about jail beds, shelter capacity, and services.