Clarence Thomas Wants Supreme Court to 'Dispose' of Landmark Ruling

Justice Clarence Thomas poses for an official portrait at the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court building on October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. "We should dispose of it once and for all," Thomas wrote of the precedent set in Robinson v. California.

Justice Clarence Thomas wants the U.S. Supreme Court to "dispose" of a landmark ruling from more than 60 years ago.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday in City of Grants Pass, Oregon, v. Gloria Johnson, a major case involving homelessness that is likely to have significant impact on major U.S. cities on the West Coast. Johnson argued that the city of roughly 40,000 unlawfully punished homeless people for sleeping on the streets when no other shelter was available and unlawfully banned the use of sleeping bags, blankets, pillows and even cardboard boxes in public spaces.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court sided with the Oregon city over a homeless plaintiff, finding that penalizing homeless people for sleeping on the streets does not violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments as well as "excessive fines."

Central to the case was a landmark decision that the court made about the Eighth Amendment in 1962, which struck down a California law that made it a criminal offense to be addicted to narcotics and which broadly found that it to be unconstitutional for the government to impose criminal penalties based on a person's status or condition. But Thomas signaled in a concurring opinion that the court should reconsider Robinson v. California entirely, saying the 1962 case was "wrongly decided."

The justice said that while Robinson didn't need to be reconsidered in order to decide Grants Pass, "rather than let Robinson's erroneous holding linger in the background of our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, we should dispose of it once and for all."

"In an appropriate case, the Court should certainly correct this error," Thomas said, signaling that he'd be willing to take up a case challenging the landmark ruling should a petition come before the Supreme Court.

In its Friday opinion, the court said that the public campaign ordinance in Grants Pass is "nothing like the law at issue in Robinson."

"Rather than criminalize mere status, Grants Pass forbids actions like 'occupy[ing] a campsite' on public property 'for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live,'" the ruling read.

"Because laws like these do not criminalize mere status, Robinson is not implicated," the court found.

But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the majority's understanding of Robinson "is plainly wrong."

"The Court's misstep today is confined to its application of Robinson. It is quite possible, indeed likely, that these and similar ordinances will face more days in court," Sotomayor wrote. She was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Grants Pass divided left-leaning circles, pitting liberal political leaders like California Governor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed against progressive members of Congress like Representative Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez of New York and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Those who disagreed with Johnson's lawsuit, like Newsom, said that such local ordinances are necessary to address matters of public safety, while others argued that homeless people have the right to sleep outside. Nearly 90 amicus briefs were filed in the case, with nearly 40 in support of the Oregon city and just over 40 in support of Johnson, a homeless woman who sued the city.

In September 2022, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the local ordinances amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment" and were in violation of the Constitution. Friday's decision overrules that decision.

The ruling is expected to have major implications for cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, which have been hit hard by the nation's homelessness crisis. More than 600,000 people experience homelessness on a given night in America, and nearly half sleep outside, according to the National Homelessness Law Center.

The justices heard oral arguments on April 22. The liberals on the bench appeared more sympathetic to the arguments in favor of the homeless. But even Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump appointee, questioned if the camping ban in Grants Pass would help the homelessness problem.

"How does it help if there are not enough beds for the number of homeless people in the jurisdiction?" Kavanaugh asked.

Kavanaugh also asked what happens when a homeless person goes to jail after receiving multiple citations, pointing out that such people would not "be any better off than [they] were before in finding a bed."

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