Friday, April 14, 2006

The 9th Circus rides again

L.A began to go about arresting various homeless people for all manner of vagrancy related crimes. Giving these people a place to stay, medical care, food, and shelter. Providing taxpayer food, shelter and care for the homeless however is a wrong that the 9th circus rode in to "correct"

"Because there is substantial and undisputed evidence that the number of homeless persons in Los Angeles far exceeds the number of available shelter beds at all times, including on the night" the plaintiffs were arrested or cited, "Los Angeles has encroached upon" the plaintiffs' 8th Amendment protections "by criminalizing the unavoidable act of sitting, lying or sleeping at night while being involuntarily homeless," Wardlaw wrote.
...
However, in this instance, Judge Wardlaw analogized to earlier rulings, which said the mere act of being a drug addict or an alcoholic is not a crime.

In 1962, the Supreme Court, in Robinson v. California, reversed the conviction of a California man who had been convicted of violating a state law which made it a criminal offense to "be addicted to the use of narcotics."

At the time, the high court, said, "it is unlikely that any state at this moment in history would attempt to make it a criminal offense for a person to be mentally ill, or a leper, or to be afflicted with a venereal disease…In the light of contemporary human knowledge, a law which made a criminal offense of such a disease would doubtless be universally thought to be an affliction of cruel and unusual punishment."


So let us take a look at the 8th Amendment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.


While the legal argument is semi-reasonable....the philisophical argument is truely bizare

We'll see how this one turns out

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