Supreme Court Decision Info Sheet

Supreme Court Decision Info Sheet  

City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (2024) 

The city of Grants Pass, Oregon, enforced ordinances against camping and sleeping in public places. The ordinances were civil penalties, but after repeated violations, they matured into criminal violations. The legal question became whether a city could prohibit individuals experiencing homelessness from sleeping or camping on public property when they have no alternative shelter. The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of homeless individuals (the plaintiffs), stating that enforcing these ordinances against people experiencing homelessness who have no other place to go violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The lower court relied on the precedent set in Martin v. City of Boise (2009), which held that punishing unsheltered individuals for sleeping outside when they have no other alternatives is unconstitutional. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the city of Grants Pass ordinances did not violate the constitutional protections of the Eighth Amendment. The majority opinion of the court included:

“The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause focuses on the question what ‘method or kind of punishment’ a government may impose after a criminal conviction, not on the question whether a government may criminalize particular behavior in the first place or how it may go about securing a conviction for that offense… Nor, focusing on the criminal punishments Grant Pass imposes, can we say they qualify as cruel and unusual. Recall that, under the city’s ordinances, an initial offense may trigger a civil fine. Repeat offenses may trigger an order temporarily barring an individual from camping in a public park. Only those who later violate an order like that may face a criminal punishment of up to 30 days in jail and a larger fine…. Nor are the city’s sanctions unusual, because similar punishments have been and remain among “the usual mode[s]” for punishing offenses throughout the country.”

 

Ewing v. California (2003)  

In March 2020, Gary Ewing was caught stealing three clubs valued at nearly $400 each from a California golf course. The total amount of goods Gary had stolen was valued at enough to make his crime a felony. California had a “three-strikes” law, and this was Gary’s third strike. Gary was looking at 25 years to life in prison. Gary and his lawyer claimed the punishment of 25 years to life was “cruel and unusual” given the crime of stealing three golf clubs. California’s “three-strike” rule was also questioned. In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court concluded Ewing’s long history of criminal offenses justified the conviction and sentencing and supported California’s “three-strikes.” Part of the majority opinion included:

“These laws responded to widespread public concerns about crime by targeting the class of offenders who pose the greatest threat to public safety: career criminals… Ewing’s sentence is justified by the State’s public-safety interest in incapacitating and deterring recidivist felons, and amply supported by his own long, serious criminal record. Ewing has been convicted of numerous misdemeanor and felony offenses, served nine separate terms of incarceration, and committed most of his crimes while on probation or parole. His prior ‘strike’s’ serious felonies including robbery and three residential burglaries. To be sure, Ewing’s sentence is a long one. But it reflects a rational legislative judgment, entitled to deference, that offenders who have committed serious or violent felonies and who continue to commit felonies must be incapacitated.”

 

Ingraham v. Wright (1977) 

In the fall of 1970, several students and their families from Charles R. Drew Junior High School in Miami Florida sought judicial support after the students experienced corporal punishment as a form of discipline. The school used paddling as a form of discipline for behaviors including tardiness, failure to follow adult directions, and disruptive behaviors. Students alleged when they resisted, the paddling was more aggressive and included being forcefully held in place. In addition to the Eighth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process protections were also brought into the case. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the school district, holding that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit corporal punishment in schools. The Court also ruled Due Process was in practice in Florida law as the regulations mandating teachers and administrators exercise prudence and restraint in administering physical punishment. The majority opinion included:

“An examination of the history of the Amendment and the decisions of this Court construing the proscription against cruel and unusual punishment confirms that it was designed to protect those convicted of crimes. We adhere to this longstanding limitation, and hold that the Eighth Amendment does not apply to the paddling of children as a means of maintaining discipline in public schools… The school child has little need for the protection of the Eighth Amendment… The openness of the public school and its supervision by the community afford significant safeguards against the kinds of abuses from which the Eighth Amendment protects the prisoner.”

 

Trop v. Dulles (1957)  

In 1944, Army private Albert Trop, a naturally born United States citizen, was disciplined while stationed in Morocco. He escaped from the stockade where he was being held, only to surrender himself the next day. He was then charged with desertion. After serving three years of hard labor, he was dishonorably discharged from the Army. Years later, when rejected for a passport, he found out his citizenship had also been revoked. His case made it to the Supreme Court, where a 5-4 decision ruled the loss of citizenship is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. The majority decision included:

“Citizenship is not a license that expires upon misbehavior…citizenship is not lost every time a duty of citizenship is shirked. And the deprivation of citizenship is not a weapon that the Government may use to express its displeasure at a citizen’s conduct, however reprehensible that conduct may be. As long as a person does not voluntarily renounce or abandon his citizenship, and this petitioner has done neither, I believe his fundamental right of citizenship is secure… the words of the [Eighth] Amendment are not precise, and that their scope is not static. The Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society…. that use of denationalization as a punishment is barred by the Eighth Amendment… It is a form of punishment more primitive than torture, for it destroys for the individual the political existence that was centuries in the development.”