Posted on 04/19/2006 9:41:00 AM PDT by rellimpank
Appeals court cites Eighth Amendment in homeless case
A three-judge panel of the famously odd 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has thrown out a 37-year-old ordinance that Los Angeles police have been using to clear homeless people off the streets.
The panel ruled 2-1 Friday that the Eighth Amendment, barring cruel and unusual punishment, prohibits Los Angeles "from punishing involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter."
Some 10,000 to 12,000 homeless people now live near new condominiums and apartment buildings that have arisen in an explosion of gentrification east of downtown Los Angeles. The ruling said there was shelter for 9,000 to 10,000 homeless people in that area, leaving about 1,000 or more people without a roof over their heads.
"So long as there are a greater number of homeless individuals in Los Angeles than the number of available beds, the city may not enforce" the ordinance, the judges declared.
(Excerpt) Read more at reviewjournal.com ...
I think they should be shipped to the PUBLIC steps of the 9th CIRCUS. Set up tent city there.
"famously odd 9th U.S. Circuit Court"
That understates the fact.
Silliness from the courts.
So long as homeless people are allowed to sleep on the sidewalks, they will sleep in the sidewalks.
Enforce laws that say they cannot do so, and they'll find someplace acceptable to the law to be sleeping.
Find out where the judges live and encourage the homeless to sleep in front of their homes.
It will only change when we replace the term 9th Circuit Judge with the more correct term, "idiot in a black robe."
I wonder how many free beds there are in the suburban neighborhood where Gary Peck lives.
Correct. With a few exceptions the homeless are in fact street people. They are living the life they prefer with no responsibilities or bills to pay. Living off the generousity of naive enablers keeps them going.
Surely Mr. Peck has a spare bed room he could let them use.
The left, of which the ACLU is a part, is all about equality. To achieve that they reward failure with safety nets and freebies and punish success with high taxes and unnecessary restrictions. Unfortunately for them even that has not voided the 80-20 rule.
1. There will never be more beds than homeless because if the city started providing beds for everyone, bums from across America would start heading there. It would become a bum magnet. I know; I lived in New York in the late '80s, when benefits were generous and easy to obtain and no laws at all were enforced to keep aggressive panhandlers out of your face. They were pouring in from all over to lap up the sugar like cockroaches.
2. Public sidewalks are a passageway for foot traffic in the same way that public highways are a passageway for car traffic. If there is a constitutional right to hold up pedestrians by sleeping on the sidewalk, then there should also be a similar right to sleep on the highways. I can't wait for their lawyers to make that argument and get the 9th Circuit to agree with it. Problem solved.
Remember when Martin Sheen said that the homeless were welcome on the streets of the town where he was mayor? Rush took him up on the offer and rented buses to ship the homeless there. Sheen backed off when Johnny Carson called (Sheen) and asked him what the hell he was thinking.
they're not homeless. they're urban campers.
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