Trial date for Albuquerque lawsuit up in the air until US Supreme Court makes decision in encampment case

Apr. 22—A case taken up by the nation's highest court Monday could inform a lawsuit filed against the city of Albuquerque in 2022.

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case involving the Oregon city of Grants Pass after it started issuing $295 fines to people sleeping outdoors. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that punishing people for sleeping outside without enough available indoor shelter was a violation of the Eighth Amendment, amounting to a cruel and unusual punishment.

That might sound familiar.

In September, a Bernalillo County District Court judge issued a preliminary ruling that said, given a shortage of shelter beds, the city of Albuquerque cannot punish homeless people for their "mere presence" on public properties. An injunction, which has since been modified, was put in place Nov. 1 and restricted how the city can ask people camping on public property to move.

The original lawsuit was filed by eight people — several of whom camped at Coronado Park before the park was closed — who alleged the city was violating their constitutional rights.

A trial date was set for August. But that date has been vacated until a decision is made in the Supreme Court case, Grants Pass v. Johnson .

"We want to know what the new federal standard is going to be and what exactly our trial will need to look like," said Laura Schauer Ives, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs.

City spokesperson Staci Drangmeister said the Grants Pass camping ban is "very different" from existing Albuquerque city ordinances. The city published a "Policy for Responding to Encampments on Public Property" in 2021, which was revised in 2022.

"The City remains focused on both connecting people experiencing homelessness to services and shelter and enforcing our laws to keep our city safe and clean for everyone," Drangmeister said in an email to the Journal. "We are awaiting the SCOTUS decision on Johnson vs Grants Pass to determine if it will have any direct impact on Albuquerque."

Schauer Ives said there was "pressure" for the nation's highest court to take up the case.

"It's something that communities are struggling with," Schauer Ives said. "We continue to contend the struggle is not improved, nor answered, by criminalizing the most vulnerable people."

The city of Albuquerque filed an amicus brief in the case before the Supreme Court .

Schauer Ives said even if the high court decides in favor of Grants Pass, the lawsuit against the city can continue, relying on a state constitution argument. She added that arguments against the seizure and destruction of property should be unaffected.

"The federal law can inform the New Mexico Supreme Court's inquiry, (but) it's not determinative of it," Schauer Ives said.

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