Court Rules Homeless People Are Allowed to Have Stuff

[The Straight Story]

Court Rules Homeless People Are Allowed to Have Stuff

Lost amid the uproar over other Supreme Court rulings this week was this: yesterday, SCOTUS let stand a lower court ruling that said that the city of LA cannot just confiscate and destroy the possessions of homeless people. Homeless people may legally have things, huzzah.

The LA Times reports that the case stemmed from a lawsuit brought by homeless residents of LA's skid row, who said that city workers and police came and seized "their personal possessions — including identification, medications, cellphones and toiletries," which they had left behind only temporarily.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the transients' possessions could be taken only if they posed an immediate threat to public health or were evidence of a crime...

The city, in a court filing, said homeless people defied cleaning schedules by leaving overflowing shopping carts and piles of possessions covered with tarps and blankets on the sidewalks, breeding vermin and bacteria.

The Supreme Court let that lower court ruling stand without comment, meaning that homeless people's stuff is legally protected from just being thrown away by the city. It may still be thrown away illegally by the city, or by cops, or stolen or destroyed by people on the street.

http://gawker.com/court-rules-homeless-people-are-allowed-to-have-stuff-571784150

[PoliticAverse]

1. right of the people to be secure in their ... houses, papers, and effects, ...shall not be violated

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,"

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment

[B Calm]

6. but, what if their belongings are in

a stolen grocery cart?

[Romulus Quirinus]

2. kick nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. K&R for broken clocks. Or, is it blind pigs?

[longship]

4. Do they mean, like their food?

Or their clothing? Or the cardboard box they call home? Or a step stool to climb into dumpsters to get their meals?

They don't even have a home. How dare they have anything of value. Like clothes!

What were the challengers in this case thinking?

[Jim Lane]

5. I saw the headline and thought, "It's probably the Onion."

Nope, this one was real.

I'll bet the Onion people are kicking themselves for not having thought of this before it was outpaced by reality.