Analyst: Supreme Court ruling gives New Orleans new weapon to fight homeless encampments

The United States Supreme Court says that laws prohibiting people from setting up and living in homeless encampments do not violate the the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishments.

The Supreme Court issued that 6-3 decision on Friday morning , overturning a lower court's ruling that declared an Oregon law criminalizing homeless encampments as unconstitutional.

According to a legal analyst, this decision gives the city of New Orleans and other local governments a path to weeding out homeless encampments under local freeways and elsewhere.

"If cities want to regulate against those sorts of acts and conduct, they are free to do so without a problem under the Eighth Amendment," Loyola University law professor Dane Ciolino said. "It just gives states the ability--and municipalities the ability--to enact statutes and ordinances without any limitations being imposed by the cruel and unusual punishments clause if the regulations imposed the sorts of punishments that we typically see for these sorts of violations, such as short prison sentences and fines."

Ciolino says the ruling itself does not criminalize homelessness or homeless encampments. Rather, he says, it allows cities and states to fine or imprison those who set up and live in homeless encampments. While he says the ruling gives cities and state's "wide leeway" to implement such laws, Ciolino notes the decision does not address due process or free speech issues that could put those laws back before the Supreme Court.

"The three members of the court who dissented went out of their way to note that there are other possible constitutional challenges that the court may be able to consider even in the wake of this decision," Ciolino said. "This decision only addresses the limitations that are imposed or, more properly stated, not imposed by the Eighth Amendment's cruel and unusual punishments clause."

According to Ciolino, the dissenting justices laid out the possible constitutional challenges that homeless encampment bans could face.

"The dissent suggests that there are due process challenges that could arise under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that might give some arguments to homeless individuals who challenge regulations and ordinances," Ciolino said. "Perhaps, the First Amendment could be raised if there are vague and overbreadth challenges that could be brought."

Still, Ciolino says the decision is a big win for local and state governments.

"This does give cities and states wide leeway to regulate and to try to address using criminal fines and civil penalties to address the homelessness problem that everyone understands is a major social issue," Ciolino said.