In this story from Saturday’s Bee it appears the ability to camp in a city’s open space without restriction may have obtained legal standing, and this has impact in Sacramento as the article notes, as these arguments have been used here to drop charges of illegal camping in the Parkway.
While it may be compassionate to the unfortunate individuals and families without a roof over their head, it places a severe handicap on areas, such as the American River Parkway, and the adjacent communities, where illegal camping becomes an issue of public safety, trash accumulation, and habitat destruction.
Here is an excerpt.
Court: L.A. law is unfair to homeless
By Claire Cooper -- Bee Legal Affairs Writer Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, April 15, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO - Because thousands of homeless people in Los Angeles have no shelters to turn to, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that the city violates their rights by enforcing its broad ban against sitting, lying or sleeping on public streets and sidewalks.
The Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments," bars punishment of "involuntary sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles," said a divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The decision, written by Judge Kim Wardlaw of Pasadena, was a rare victory for the homeless against cities that have attempted to eradicate signs of their presence by using various "anti-camping" ordinances.
In the Los Angeles case, unlike some others that cities have won, homeless advocates presented undisputed evidence of a shortage of shelter beds. Los Angeles also has a broader law than other cities. It allows public sitting only on benches or during permitted parades.
Friday's ruling did not strike down the law but required that it be narrowed.
The decision was based on 1960s-vintage U.S. Supreme Court decisions barring punishment of alcoholics and drug addicts on the basis of their addiction.
In a dissent, 9th Circuit Judge Pamela Rymer, also of Pasadena, said the high court's decisions were applicable only to crimes of status and not crimes of conduct.
Los Angeles doesn't punish people "simply because they are homeless" but because they sit, lie or sleep on city sidewalks, conduct "that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without," Rymer wrote.
She said "neither the Supreme Court nor any other circuit court of appeals has ever held that conduct derivative of a status may not be criminalized."
The 9th Circuit majority, however, found conduct and status inseparable in the Los Angeles case, "given that human beings are biologically compelled to rest."
Joining Wardlaw was Edward Reed Jr., a Nevada U.S. district judge assigned to the case.
The majority opinion repudiated a lower court's 1994 decision in San Francisco that homelessness was not a status protected by the Eighth Amendment.
By ordering an injunction against Los Angeles, the 9th Circuit also went well beyond a 1998 state Court of Appeal decision that permits homeless Californians to beat criminal charges after they're hauled into court by raising a defense of "necessity."
The circuit judges said six homeless plaintiffs who sued are entitled "at a minimum" to a "narrowly tailored injunction" that will permit them to sit, lie down or sleep "at certain times and/or places."
It will be up to a trial judge to set the injunction's terms.
Similar issues have been raised in Sacramento, where local laws make it illegal to sleep, urinate, drink or store one's belongings in public.
