Star Tribune
U.S. Supreme Court will review homeless encampment case
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review an Oregon case concerning how cities treat homeless people sleeping outdoors — and may be poised to issue a decision with wide-reaching implications, according to Minnesota legal experts.
Up for consideration is a challenge to a 2018 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling — and a related 2022 court decision — that found it is “cruel and unusual” to arrest or ticket homeless people camping in public unless they have access to shelter. Those decisions have blocked West Coast cities in the Ninth Circuit from enforcing laws prohibiting unsanctioned camping.
Now, however, the court has agreed to hear a challenge from the city of Grants Pass, Ore., and other cities that want to be able to enforce camping restrictions. As the parties prepare their arguments for the court — which will take up the case later this year — advocacy groups and legal experts here and elsewhere are contemplating how the high court might rule, and how it will affect local discussions on encampments.
The odds of taking up a case
The Supreme Court gets about 8,000 requests a year, but chooses to review just 1% of them.
Once justices accept a case, they reverse the lower court decision about 80% of the time, said Prof. David Schultz, a University of Minnesota visiting professor of law. And when it comes to the Ninth Circuit, historically more liberal than the Supreme Court, the reversal rate is closer to 90%.
“Knowing what we know from a political science analysis of looking at what the Supreme Court does,” Schultz said, “odds are that at least four justices [agreed to review the case] with the belief that they want to reverse and they think they have the votes to be able to reverse.”
Some people would argue that the current Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, takes cases in order to further the agenda of the conservative justices, said Michael Steenson, a constitutional law professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law. But Steenson noted that the Supreme Court often takes up cases when there’s confusion over the way lower courts are interpreting federal law on high-stakes issues.
The encampment cases raise interesting questions about the reach of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, he said. There is disagreement about whether “punishment” refers to criminal or civil penalties, and whether being homeless or addicted to drugs stems from a person’s “status” — which the Supreme Court ruled in 1962 cannot be punished — or from “conduct,” which several federal courts of appeal believe can be punished.
“Some of these [laws] just seem mean-spirited; if you’re going to camp, you can’t have pillows, can’t have blankets, or you’ll be cited for that,” said Steenson.
But the question that the Supreme Court will have to answer is whether it’s cruel and unusual to issue those citations, and in Steenson’s opinion, a largely conservative court won’t interpret the Eighth Amendment that way.
Possible scenarios
The court’s decision could play out in a variety of ways, with differing impacts for cities like Minneapolis facing significant challenges with encampments.
The Supreme Court could affirm the Ninth Circuit and tell cities across the nation that they must find sufficient shelter for homeless people if they want to get rid of their encampments. Or, they could reverse and give cities the power to arrest and fine homeless people with nowhere else to go.
In between those possibilities, there are off-ramps, said William Knight, a civil rights lawyer with the National Homelessness Law Center.
One option: The court could draw a line between civil and criminal punishment by allowing fines for camping but continuing to prohibit locking up homeless people to clear the nation’s streets.
Knight believes that scenario, where the Supreme Court overturns the Oregon ruling, wouldn’t solve cities’ problems.
“It means that municipalities around the country will be free to return to using police and prosecutors and jail cells to invisibilize homelessness, which is an expensive way to make homelessness worse,” he said.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
