Professor Joel Johnson Quoted in "Eighth Amendment Features in Supreme Court Case on Homelessness" -- New York Times

Professor Joel S. Johnson is quoted in the New York Times article, "Eighth Amendment Features in Supreme Court Case on Homelessness." The article discusses Professor's Johnson's amicus brief in the Supreme Court case, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, in which Professor Johnson argues that the Court should reaffirm the constitutional requirement that all crime must be based on conduct, but make clear that the conduct requirement is properly based on the Due Process Clause, rather than the Eighth Amendment. The case considers whether the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual treatment applies to a city’s efforts to ban public sleeping and camping.

Excerpt from "Eighth Amendment Features in Supreme Court Case on Homelessness"

Two legal experts, in filing a friend-of-the-court brief siding with Grants Pass, argued that the Constitution did bar criminalizing someone’s state of being, rather than their specific conduct. But that prohibition, the law professors — Peter W. Low of the University of Virginia and Joel S. Johnson of Pepperdine — added, had a “shaky Eighth Amendment footing.”

The article may be found at New York Times