The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city of Spokane, Washington, on Thursday, alleging that its anti-camping laws violate the state constitution. It is believed to be the country's first such legal challenge since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that cities can enforce outdoor sleeping bans.
The court’s landmark decision — which found in June that such bans do not violate the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, even when shelter space is lacking — has prompted homeless advocates to seek new ways to challenge laws prohibiting outdoor sleeping.
The complaint filed in Spokane County Superior Court challenges city ordinances that make camping, sitting or lying on public property misdemeanor crimes in certain circumstances. Under state law, a misdemeanor is punishable by a fine up to $1,000 or jail for up to 90 days.
“This Spokane case serves as another opportunity for us to build out those protections under our state constitution, which is more protective than its federal counterpart,” Jazmyn Clark, director of the ACLU of Washington’s Smart Justice Policy Program, told The Associated Press.
It was unclear whether Spokane has begun enforcing its multiple anti-camping ordinances following the high court ruling.
Erin Hut, a spokesperson for the Spokane city attorney’s office, said in an email that the city had not yet been served the lawsuit and was unable to comment. Messages left with Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Spokane City Council President Betsy Wilkerson said the council is aware of the complaint filed by the ACLU, but it has not been provided a copy.
“Once the City is formally served with the suit, the matter will be referred to the City Attorney,” Wilkerson said in an email to the AP. "After that, the Council intends to let the legal process unfold in due course and will not formally comment on the matter.”
Clark said two of the plaintiffs, a homeless person and someone formerly homeless, were cited by police under Spokane's ordinances. A homeless services nonprofit is also a plaintiff.
Clark noted the Eight Amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment, but the Washington state constitution only prohibits cruel punishment and thus provides more protection. This means that if punishing sleeping outside with fines and jail time is found to be cruel, that alone is a violation of the state constitution, Clark said.
“You do not need to show that such punishment is also unusual,” she said.
Washington isn't the only state whose constitution prohibits cruel punishment without mentioning unusual punishment. Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island, Kentucky and South Dakota have similar language in their constitutions.
While Clark believes her group’s lawsuit is the first such challenge filed since the Supreme Court ruling, she said Spokane was targeted because its multiple ordinances against camping and sitting outside create “near-total islands of exclusion throughout the city.”
Before the Supreme Court ruling, ACLU affiliates in other states, including Hawaii, had filed suits similarly claiming that local measures against homeless camping violated their state constitutions.
Hawaii’s constitution prohibits “cruel or unusual” punishment, in a minor difference of wording compared to the federal constitution’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual” punishment.
“In the context of Hawaii and our state constitution, it doesn’t have to be both. It could be one or the other,” said ACLU of Hawaii Executive Director Salmah Rizvi.
Last month, the ACLU of Hawaii and Honolulu agreed to dismiss a 2023 lawsuit the group had filed against the city’s homeless sweeps policy.
Elsewhere, a lawsuit filed in 2022 by the ACLU of Colorado alleging that the city of Boulder's camping policy violates the state constitution is pending, said ACLU legal director Tim Macdonald. The trial on the case has been postponed while both side file briefs and the court is expected to hear arguments within the next month, he said.
Spokane, in eastern Washington, is the state’s second most populous city with roughly 230,000 residents.
One of its ordinances prohibits camping at all times, regardless of shelter availability, within 50 feet of a railroad viaduct located downtown or within three blocks of a homeless shelter. Another bars sitting or lying on the sidewalk in the downtown area between 6 a.m. and midnight. And voters in November approved a ban on camping within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of a school, day care or park.
So far this year, the city has prosecuted at least 114 cases of unlawful camping and sitting and lying violations, according to the complaint. In 2023, it prosecuted at least 107 unlawful camping cases. Hundreds of people have been cited since 2014, when the city's first so-called “sit and lie” ordinance took effect, the complaint says.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, western cities had been allowed to regulate encampments under a lower court ruling but couldn’t completely bar people from sleeping outdoors. They had argued the lower court ruling made it harder to manage encampments in public spaces, while homeless advocates said punishing those needing a place to sleep effectively criminalizes homelessness.
Elsewhere, other cities and states have adopted more aggressive approaches to tent clearing since the Supreme Court decision.
In California, home to nearly a third of the nation's 650,000 homeless people, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently ordered state agencies to begin removing tents on state land. And San Francisco's mayor recently announced new policies giving police and other city workers more leeway in dismantling encampments.
In 2023, Washington had the fourth largest homeless population among the states with more than 28,000 homeless residents, according to federally mandated counts.
FILE - The downtown skyline is shown from the South Hill in Spokane, Wash., on June 4, 2018. The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington has sued the city of Spokane, alleging that its anti-homeless laws violate the state constitution. The group filed the suit on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, on behalf of a currently homeless person and someone who was formerly homeless. (AP Photo/Nicholas K. Geranios, File)
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — The three-phased election for choosing a local government in Indian-controlled Kashmir opened early Wednesday in the first such vote since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped the disputed region of its special status five years ago.
Authorities deployed thousands of additional police and paramilitary soldiers in the region’s seven southern districts where over 2.3 million residents are eligible to cast their votes and chose 24 lawmakers out of 219 candidates in the first phase of the polling.
Wearing riot gears and carrying assault rifles, troops set up checkpoints and patrolled the constituencies in the districts as locals lined up to cast their votes in villages and towns.
The second and third phases are scheduled for Sept. 25 and Oct. 1 in a process that is staggered to allow troops to move around to stop potential violence. Votes will be counted on Oct. 8, with results expected that day.
For the first time, authorities limited access of foreign media to polling stations and denied press credentials to most journalists working with international media, including to The Associated Press, without citing any reason. Press passes issued by election authorities are mandatory for journalists to travel and film, photograph or interview voters in a polling constituency.
The vote is the first in a decade, and the first since Modi’s Hindu nationalist government in 2019 scrapped the Muslim-majority region’s semi-autonomy and downgraded the former state to a federally governed territory. It was also divided into two federal territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir, ruled directly by New Delhi, allowing it to appoint administrators to run the territories along unelected bureaucrats and security personnel.
The multistage election will allow Kashmir to have its own truncated government and a local legislature, called an assembly, instead of remaining under New Delhi’s direct rule. A chief minister will head a council of ministers in the government.
However, there will be a limited transition of power from New Delhi to the local assembly as Kashmir will continue to be a “Union Territory” — directly controlled by the federal government — with India’s Parliament remaining its main legislator. Kashmir’s statehood must be restored for the new government to have powers similar to other states of India.
Multiple local parties have campaigned on promises to fight for reversal of 2019 changes and address other key issues like rising unemployment and inflation in the region where locals have struggled amid curtailed civil liberties particularly after the revocation of the special status.
India's ruling BJP, however, has vowed to block any move aimed at undoing those changes but promised to help in the region’s economic development.
India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
The region’s last assembly election was held in 2014, after which Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party for the first time ruled in a coalition with the local Peoples Democratic Party. But the government collapsed in 2018, after BJP withdrew from the coalition.
Polls in the past have been marked with violence, boycotts and vote-rigging, even though India called them a victory over separatism.
Kashmiri women queue up at a polling booth to cast their vote in Marval, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Kashmiri's queue up at a polling booth to cast their vote in Marval, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
A Kashmiri man walks back after casting his vote at a polling booth in Marval, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Indian paramilitary soldiers stand guard as Kashmiri's queue up at a polling booth to cast their vote in Marval, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Indian paramilitary soldiers arrive to guard outside the venue for distribution of election material, in Pulwama south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Indian paramilitary soldiers arrive to guard outside the venue for distribution of election material, in Pulwama, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Polling officials carry electronic voting machines and other election material to a venue for distribution, in Pulwama south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Indian paramilitary soldier guard a venue for distribution of election material, in Pulwama south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Former union minster and star campaigner of BJP Anurag Thakur and state in charge Ram Madhav wave to supporters during a campaign rally, after party candidates filed the nomination papers for the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections at Nagrota outskirts of Jammu, India, Thursday, Sep.12, 2024.(AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)
Supporters of India's opposition Congress party, wave during an election rally at Dooru some 78 kilometers (49 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir,Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan, File)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party workers attend a rally, ahead of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections in Jammu, India, Saturday Sep.7, 2024.(AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)
Indian paramilitary soldiers arrive to guard outside the venue for distribution of election material, in Pulwama, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Indian paramilitary soldiers arrive to guard outside the venue for distribution of election material, in Pulwama, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Indian paramilitary soldier guard as polling officials carry electronic voting machines and other election material to a venue for distribution, in Pulwama, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Security personnel members stand and wait as polling officials prepare to leave for their respective polling booths on the eve of the first phase of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly election, in Ramban 150 kilometers (94 miles) northeast of Jammu, India, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Channi Anand)
Polling officials carry electronic voting machines and other election material to a venue for distribution, in Pulwama south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
