Justice Sotomayor Blasts 'Unconscionable' SCOTUS Ruling Overturning Homeless Rights

The 6-3 decision "permits punishing homeless people with no access to shelter for sleeping in public," Sotomayor said in her dissent.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor gave a blistering dissent of Friday’s ruling that will give local governments the ability to punish homeless people for sleeping outside.

“The only question for the Court today is whether the Constitution permits punishing homeless people with no access to shelter for sleeping in public with as little as a blanket to keep warm,” Sotomayor said in her dissent.

In a 6-3 decision, the conservative-majority court overturned two decisions from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granting protections to homeless people from punishment for sleeping outdoors.

The decision, Grants Pass v. Johnson, will make it easier for states and cities to ban homeless people from sleeping outside while punishing them with civil fines and even jail time. In the ruling, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court concluded that “generally applicable” laws like those against camping could not qualify as “cruel and unusual punishment.”

In her dissent, Sotomayor called the new ruling “unconscionable and unconstitutional.”