Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/23/the-roberts-court-dodges-responsibility.html
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Hell yes they do. If there’s no reasonable option to make use of a restroom facility that’s the fault of the municipality, not the person who needs to complete a non-optional biological function common to all animals.
I can’t stand the NIMBYs who oppose building of restrooms in my city under the theory that they would attract “undesirables.” Fortunately reason prevailed and we just got a new restroom installed in a city park near me.
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So, if I have a home, but I’m not in it when I fall asleep, I can be arrested? Or is it only if I don’t have a home? I have to admit, I have fallen asleep on the Metro before.
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“Why would you think that these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?” Chief Justice Roberts’s question is a good one!
I see this as two questions:
- Are we nine justices qualified to answer this as myself and none of my fellow justices have experience the abject poverty and tribulations that accompany homeless?
(Perhaps they could shed their robes and privilege and leave their personal effects in the hands of court staff, visit a wardrobe and makeup artist to set a “professionally disheveled” look, and survive solely on $60 for the weekend, with only ID and the basic street clothes on their backs.) - Why are we tasked with making a decision in this matter?
(You are executive staff of the court of last resort, therefore, and while abiding by the Constitution, you need to either:
a. Untangle this mess, or
b. Set guidelines for whomever ultimately is tasked with this responsibility.)
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The conservative justices obviously don’t give a damn about homeless people. Roberts himself is only on the SCOTUS to defend the rights of corporate “persons”, who don’t sleep at all (my friends).
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For sure.
The fact that he’s even asking about it this way. Where was this same level of trepidation when he was asked to hear a case about a hypothetical wedding website request?
They continue showing us who they are.
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Maybe he knows the most honest answer contradicts his standard right-wing thinking and he doesn’t want to go there.
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“But I wouldn’t expect you to criminalize breathing in public”
Well, not until corporations have found a way to monetize it. Just wait.
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I’m sure that someone is trying to come up with a way to charge a Green Tax for people breathing out carbon dioxide, and someone else looking for a way to charge people for oxygen consumption.
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Translation: “This is an icky subject and I don’t want to get any of it on me, in case it rubs off. Make it go away.”
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If the law in question were involved in a policy designed to reduce homelessness, that would be a fair question. The law in question is not designed to reduce homelessness. It is only designed to hide it. There is no reasonable argument that banning sleeping in public areas will reduce homelessness. It won’t have any impact on it at all, and that’s clearly not its purpose. That’s what allows the Court to deal with this law. It doesn’t implicate questioning policy decisions best made by experts in those areas. It implicates a human right, and that is absolutely within the Court’s purview.
ETA: It will be interesting to see how Roberts squares this line of thinking with the Chevron doctrine if they decide to torpedo that.
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If there are no public accommodations, then yes it is an Eighth Amendment right. Creating laws to make biological imperatives illegal is idiotic, but that’s clearly not this court’s strong suit…
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I think I saw my first Oxygen Bar sometime in the late 1990s. They were more popular in other places - with less clean Oxygen freely in the ‘air’.
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Of course breathing is illegal when you breathe air that is owned by somebody else without permission (and, obviously, paying for it).
Have fun at your Mars colony, Space Cadets!
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Hey, if you don’t want to pay the company price for air you’re free to just step outside.
(I wonder what Musk thinks of the ending to that film? On the one hand he’s got that silly ambition to terraform Mars. But I’m assuming he’s also quite sympathetic to the character Vilos Cohaagen, the greedy corporate governor of the Mars colony.)
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You reminded me of this corporate voting case, so now I hope any resulting lawsuits don’t make it as far as this SCOTUS:
ETA follow-up on this legislation in Delaware.
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I don’t think people like him pay attention to endings. Remember when the Trump campaign compared itself to the unstoppable death star, or ran an ad about how he was inevitable like Thanos?
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I believe this was at least partly covered by Heinlein in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
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