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Justices uphold laws targeting homelessness with criminal penalties - SCOTUSblog (www.scotusblog.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch contended that the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment, “serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges” to “dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy.” Instead, he suggested, such a task should fall to the American people.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. She argued that the majority’s ruling “focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local government and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.”

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
― Anatole France, The Red Lily, 1894

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Thanks for the citation someone posted that along with a quote from the dissent in another thread and it had me going back into the opinion looking for where they said that.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Almost like the super rich and powerful don't give a single fuck about the poor and downtrodden. Who would have thought that was even possible... oh wait, me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

They only care whether they have to look at poor and downtrodden people. It makes them feel uncomfy.

We should steal all of their teeth.