Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal

Cruise ships, sham interviews, and our nation's commitment to a government of laws.

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature written by a bunch of people at the Institute for Justice.

New cert petition: In 2015, NYC purportedly issued a citation to IJ client Serafim Katergaris for a code violation (a missing boiler inspection report) committed by the prior owner of his house in Harlem, a violation that did not show up in the title search. Serafim would like to argue that the city's code-enforcement system, which makes it impossible to challenge fines like his, violates due process. But he never received the 2015 citation and didn't find out about it until years later—too late to sue, according to the Second Circuit. In a holding that departs from other circuits, the court treated the federal common law "mailbox rule" not so much as a rebuttable presumption of receipt but as an ironclad one. We're asking SCOTUS to bring harmony back to the circuits.

New on the Short Circuit podcast: Sixth Circuit dissental drama.

1. On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order freezing foreign aid spending. Recipients of the aid sued, alleging that the President was unconstitutionally violating the separation of powers by withholding the appropriated funds. District Court: And here are three reasons why I'm preliminarily enjoining the President's actions. D.C. Circuit (over a dissent): And here are three reasons why the plaintiffs don't have a cause of action.
2. The Trump administration has canned over 80 percent of the workforce at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and has ordered remaining employees not to do any work that isn't expressly required by statute. D.C. Circuit: And the plaintiffs might have challenged those individual decisions, but instead they chose to challenge the administration "shutting down" the agency, which isn't a final action, so we won't hear it. Dissent: "The notion that courts are powerless to prevent the President from abolishing the agencies of the federal government that he was elected to lead cannot be reconciled with either the constitutional separation of powers or our nation's commitment to a government of laws."
3. Police find spent shell casings and not much else after shooting in D.C. As it happens, a pole camera (part of an unrelated investigation) snagged video of the shooter, who'd fired into the air and stepped back inside a home. A search of the home yields the defendant and copious contraband. D.C. Circuit: No need to suppress the pole-camera evidence. But: "We do not suggest that pole-camera surveillance could never amount to a Fourth Amendment search. In another case, the technology might be used over longer periods, with more cameras, or in combination with other tools—such as facial recognition, automated tracking or artificial intelligence—to build a far more comprehensive portrait of an individual's life."
4. Employing a variety of skeevy artifices, college track coach obtains naked selfies from student athletes, over 50 women in all—images that are now floating around the internet. First Circuit: No reason to disturb his above-guidelines, five-year sentence for cyberstalking and wire and computer fraud, a sentence that is all the more reasonable because he continued to seek nudes while on pretrial release.
5. Et in Acadia … cruise ships? Bar Harbor is a popular tourist destination in Maine and gateway to the majestic Acadia National Park. In the mid-2000s, the town began soliciting cruise ship tourism—too successfully, according to some residents: In 2022, the town enacted an ordinance capping disembarkments at 1,000 passengers/day. Tourism-reliant businesses sue, arguing, inter alia, a Dormant Commerce Clause violation. The district court ruled for the town. First Circuit: That's mostly fine, but on remand, take a harder look at whether burdens on interstate commerce are clearly excessive in relation to the ordinance's putative benefits. Affirmed in part, vacated and remanded in part.
6. New York's adult-use marijuana rollout has been rocky thanks to fights over how to dole out scarce retail licenses. Its first program—limited to N.Y. residents—went up in smoke in 2022 after a court found it likely violated the Dormant Commerce Clause. The follow-up program let out-of-staters apply—but tripled the odds of approval for low-income residents of disproportionately impacted communities who (or whose close family member) had a New York marijuana conviction. Another lawsuit followed. The lower court held that the DCC doesn't apply because marijuana is federally illegal. Second Circuit (over a dissent): The DCC's "familiar rule" banning state protectionism applies even in this "strange circumstance." The lower court must take a clear-eyed and full-hearted look at the injunction request. Vacated and remanded.
7. 2019: E. Jean Carroll sues Donald J. Trump for defamation. 2020: Attorney General certifies Trump was acting in official capacity while making defamatory statements, so U.S. should be substituted as defendant. 2023: Following appeals, new AG decides actually Trump wasn't acting in official capacity. 2024: Jury verdict for Carroll, Trump appeals. 2025: New new AG decides first AG was right. Second Circuit: You can't go to trial, lose, and then try this substitution maneuver anew on appeal.
8. The "Rooney Rule" requires NFL teams to interview at least two minority applicants for each coaching position. But what if, allegedly, the interviewer is a "completely disheveled" John Elway who arrives an hour late and seems hungover? Plaintiff, a former NLF coach: Then it's a sham interview, and I have a claim for racial discrimination. NFL: Except under your old employment contract you agreed to arbitrate these claims. Second Circuit: But there needs to be a neutral arbitral forum, and the contract just leaves everything up to the discretion of the NFL Commissioner, which makes it a sham. The case may proceed.
9. Allegation: Prediabetic prisoner in New Jersey federal pen is denied appropriate medication; suffers agonizing pain; develops suppurating sores, ulcers, and eventually an infection that spreads to the bone. His toe has to be amputated. Third Circuit: There exists an administrative remedy process (of "dubious" effectiveness), and that's an end to it. Concurrence: Other circuits allow constitutional claims like this one to proceed, and they have the better approach.
10. In this peculiar case where both sides agree there was no jurisdiction for a federal court to hear this lawsuit in the first place, the Fourth Circuit provides us a treatise on standing and declaratory judgments.
11. American Federation of Teachers challenges executive order giving DOGE access to member information held by the Department of Education and other agencies that the Federation alleges is protected by the Privacy Act. The district court grants a preliminary injunction. Fourth Circuit: Reversed. To show a likelihood of success, Plaintiffs would need to prevail on four separate issues, and even if they're likely to prevail on each issue, when you multiply those probabilities, they're unlikely to prevail overall. This might be called a "multiplicative problem." Dissent: It's hard enough to get a preliminary injunction without bringing math into it.
12. After a trip to the Texas Supreme Court, the Fifth Circuit again approves, over a partial dissent, a San Antonio maintenance plan for 343-acre park that calls for removing trees and deterring cormorants from a 20-by-30-foot area that is sacred to the Lipan-Apache Native American Church—but will cease to be sacred without trees and cormorants.
13. Allegation: Louisiana gerrymandered its 2022 legislative maps to dilute the voting strength of black voters in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. District court: Twenty-five districts were either cracked or packed, so no elections under these maps until they're fixed. Fifth Circuit: Affirmed, as Louisiana did the bad stuff. Moreover, Section 2 has a private right of action, as we've already said (a split from the Eighth Circuit), and it's constitutional.
14. Another week, another unpublished Fifth Circuit undismissal of a prison-conditions case, this one involving allegations of purposeful sleep deprivation, pest infestations, filthy cells, ringworm and scabies, burning-hot (literally) showers, etc. etc.
15. Houston officials: Sure, it would be a taking if we deprived property owners of all economic value in their land, and, yes, our own expert says our rules make it economically impossible to do anything useful with this land right now, but it still has some value because maybe someday, in the future, that could change. Fifth Circuit: These guys are real-estate developers, not Little Orphan Annie. If there's no value today, that' s a taking.
16. Auctioneers speak pretty fast, but not fast enough to render a licensing law that prevents unlicensed people from engaging in a "sales transaction" into a First Amendment violation, says the Sixth Circuit.
17. Family buys isolated, wooded, 40-acre parcel in northern Michigan for family gatherings. In addition to the small cabin already there, they install five prefabricated "mini-cabins" for family members to use. Neighbor gets deeply perturbed, thinking that the family is poised to operate a public campground, and he escorts three gov't officials onto the family's land to peer into the mini-cabins, measure the setbacks, take photographs, and do other generally intrusive things. Sixth Circuit: And at summary judgment, the district court rightly denied the officials qualified immunity for their clearly established Fourth Amendment violations.
18. Did you know there are approximately 175,977 privately, and lawfully, owned machineguns in the Great U.S. of A? Learn that and other machinegun facts from the Sixth Circuit as a guy in Memphis who fired at cops while trying to evade a traffic stop loses his quest to vindicate his Second Amendment rights.
19. What happens when a federal agency issues a regulation, Congress rejects it under the Congressional Review Act, but then later on the agency re-adopts the regulation again? Enjoy the discussion between the Sixth Circuit majority (this particular FCC reg survives) and dissent (the reg is way too much like the old one) as a rare example of CRA jurisprudence.
20. Two Indiana kids have serious medical conditions, requiring around-the-clock care ordinarily provided by healthcare professionals. But their families have been unable to secure in-home nurses, so for several years, the kids' moms have served as their nurses. At first, Indiana reimbursed the moms through Medicaid, including for providing "attendant care services" like assistance in eating, bathing, etc. But then Indiana changes its mind: No more reimbursements for those services. Moms: This change will force us to institutionalize our kids! Seventh Circuit: Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the district court wasn't wrong to issue a preliminary injunction requiring Indiana to keep paying the moms until in-home nurses are secured.
21. Chicago man spends nearly five years in jail before being acquitted of murder, robbery. Seventh Circuit: If you get acquitted, you can't sue the police for fabricating evidence, at least under the due process clause.
22. Forrest City, Ark. firefighter posts to his personal Facebook page an anti-abortion image that some view as racially offensive. (See for yourself following the second paragraph of the opinion.) Though he deletes it a few weeks later, the mayor fires him for its "egregious nature." Eighth Circuit: A jury gets to decide if the firing was because the image impacted the city's ability to administer public services or because the mayor just didn't like the picture.
23. Eighth Circuit (over a dissent): It probably violates the First Amendment for Minnesota prison officials to bar plaintiff from offering an optional, Bible-based course to inmates about "authentic manhood" where manhood can only be achieved via heterosexual relationships, women are to blame for creating "soft" males, etc. etc. Denial of PI reversed.
24. You learn as a first-year law student that there's no such thing as taxpayer standing in federal court. (Unless you're suing about religion, obvs.) Well, that's true at the federal and state level, but there actually kind of is taxpayer standing at the municipal level, as the Eighth Circuit points out in a case involving a Minnesota school district.
25. Eighth Circuit (en banc): Arkansas's ban on gender-transition procedures for minors is constitutional under Skrmetti. Its ban on referrals for gender-transition procedures for minors doesn't violate the First Amendment, because we're interpreting it to apply only to formal referrals for treatment by in-state providers who are already prohibited from providing that treatment.
26. In which the Ninth Circuit holds that would-be religious day cares lack standing to challenge a California rule prohibiting state-licensed day-care facilities from forcing the tykes under their care to attend religious services to which their guardians object because California regulators have never enforced the rule against an openly religious day care (presumably because parents sending their kids to openly religious day cares are okay with religious services at the openly religious day care).
27. And in en banc news, the Sixth Circuit will not reconsider its decision that a Michigan school did not violate the First Amendment when it told a third grader to remove a hat that said "COME AND TAKE IT" with an AR-15 outline just three months after a mass shooting at a nearby high school. Every judge on the Sixth Circuit agrees that the case should not be heard en banc, and yet they still have quit a lot to say about it.
28. And in more en banc news, the Sixth Circuit will not reconsider its decision allowing a lawsuit to proceed against officials in Benton Harbor, Mich., whom plaintiffs allege covered up problems with lead in the drinking water. One judge dissents from denial of rehearing, prompting another judge to decry the growing prevalence of dissents from denial, causing yet a third judge to point out that the second judge has written plenty of dissents from denials herself.
29. And in further en banc news, the Ninth Circuit will not reconsider its decision approving a $17 mil jury award for back pay to civil detainees at privately run immigration detention center for violations of Washington State minimum-wage requirements. Dissental: "Under this court's decision, any State can impair any federal policy—no matter how central to the federal government—so long as the State regulates federal contractors rather than the federal government itself."

New zoning case: In Albuquerque, N.M., it is illegal to sleep in public spaces, and the city clears thousands of homeless encampments each year. It is also as-good-as illegal to sleep on private property, as red tape makes it nearly impossible for even well-run organizations to provide safe, clean, and dignified overnight shelter. So this week, IJ has gone to court on behalf of bookstore owner Gil Kerley, who was fined for allowing a few homeless people to pitch tents in the back of his parking lot as long as they respected the property, his neighbors, and his customers—an arrangement that has worked just fine since it started during the pandemic. Click here to learn more.

Comments

[John F. Carr]

"a missing boiler inspection report"

Is this an insurable event? I know you can get insurance against unrecorded liens that are the fault of the prior owner.

[Michael Ejercito]

Yes, that is called title insurance, almost always required when a home is purchased via a mortgage.

If he had title insurance, it is likely the title company would have had to pay, and the title company would be a co-plaintiff.

[John F. Carr]

From the CFPB case:

Moreover, the plaintiffs will suffer no unusual hardship from postponing review. Unlike in cases allowing preenforcement review, the actions challenged here do not require them “to engage in, or to refrain from, any conduct.” And if their fears come to pass, they may “protect all of their rights and claims by returning to court when the controversy ripens.” Specifically, they may seek judicial review to “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.” In such suits, they would have to wait until the Bureau actually denied them a discrete service—and show either an immediate entitlement to it or an unreasonable delay in providing it. This is not a hardship; it is par for the course, even in cases where plaintiffs’ lives and livelihoods depend on the prompt receipt of agency services.

(Citations omitted.)

Although the terminated employees have a separate forum to present their claism, the Merit Systems Protection Board, I read that Trump has essentially shut it down.

[TextFirst]

Re: 3, I like this understatement from the court.

" Moreover, if Green ever did show a subjective expectation of privacy, he plainly did not when he stepped outside to fire a handgun into the air in full view of the neighborhood."

I understand the defense bar has to make whatever arguments they can, but yeesh. Of course you cannot fire a gun in public, then claim that you have a privacy interest in nobody noticing you fired a handgun in public. As cameras get cheaper and computers get better, I suspect we'll be able to catch most people who illegally fire a gun in public, prioritizing the most dangerous cities in the country (Washington DC is usually in the top 5). We may already be there, it's more a matter of political will.

[wvattorney13]

The issue is that the conduct occurred right outside his front door, an area in the curtilage of the home and subject to the most heightened Fourth Amendment protection.

Of course, if you live along the public road, you cannot complain when people view what you do even in that area. The twist comes when the government puts a camera up and records your activity in that area 24/7.

While at the time of the founding, the sheriff could have devoted a full time deputy to surveil you 24/7, that would impose a high cost on the department. Increased technology permits a near police state with little additional cost to the government. That illustrates a disturbing intrusion into personal privacy and freedom.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"The twist comes when the government puts a camera up and records your activity in that area 24/7."

And what if the camera was not there specifically to record your activity?

From the decision:

Seeking more evidence, MPD officers reviewed
surveillance footage from a pole-mounted camera that had been
installed two days earlier by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which was conducting a
separate investigation. An ATF agent testified that the camera
was monitoring the open-air courtyard behind the rowhouses
in response to reports of drug trafficking and gun violence in
the area. The camera continuously recorded activity in the
shared courtyard and the rear entryways of several rowhouses,
including 917 Wahler. See Gov’t Ex. 52.

[wvattorney13]

Is it better if the government only happens to invade your privacy by happenstance because it was invading another person's privacy on purpose?

[TextFirst]

This is a political question, not a constitutional one. Under the circumstances, having an observant officer posted in the area sounds like a great idea. That it's electronic instead of organic changes nothing.

[wvattorney13]

The right balance between personal privacy and the power of the government is by definition a constitutional question.

[TextFirst]

You, and only you, appear to think that shooting in public is a "personal privacy" issue. I just checked the constitution and it doesn't actually say this.

[wvattorney13]

The invasion of the curtilage of the home is the constitutional objection. The actual activity will be sometimes very unsettling, but that isn't the point of preventing the government from videotaping you 24/7.

It's not the right to shoot a gun outside your front door that is the problem. It is the right that you are not surveilled continuously by the government directly outside your front door.

If the government put cameras in every living room, they would surely uncover very bad activity X. The complaint would not be that a person had a right to do X, but that they had a right not to have a camera in their living room.

[Voize of Reazon]

the sheriff could have devoted a full time deputy to surveil you 24/7, that would impose a high cost on the department

Note that the leading case in favor of the constitutionality of pole camera surveillance US v. Tuggle (7th Circ. 2021) didn't rely on that reasoning, in fact the opinion explicitly rejected it:

We emphasize, however, that our decision in Tuggle’s case does not rest on the premise that the government could have—in theory—obtained the same surveillance by stationing an agent atop the utility poles outside Tuggle’s home, thus rendering the decision to instead use pole cameras constitutional.

The court applied the Katz test, which requires assessing reasonableness, and found it objectively reasonable to believe that the government will not station agents on utility poles 24/7 for the 18 months (!) that the Tuggle pole camera was in operation.

[John F. Carr]

In the Bible-based prison course case, the dissent argued that the prison's "rehabilitative programming" was government speech even though the classes used outside volunteers. Government speech can discriminate based on viewpoint.

[ReaderY]

How can the dormant commerce clause possibly be violated by intrastate commerce in a commodity, interstate commerce in which the federal government has prohibited? The federal prohibition, which explicitly discourages interstate commerce in marijuana, necessarily overrides the whole purpose of the dormant commerce clause, which is basically to encourage it. By prohibiting interstate commerce in marijuana, The Dormant Commerce Clause simply cannot contradict the plain import of a duly enacted Congressional statute.

It’s one thing for courts to have their own extratextual commercial policy, pretend it’s in the constitution, and make it the default. It’s quite another for courts to flatly ignore Congress’ policy when Congress has decreed a different one. Because Congress has passed a law prohibiting interstate commerce in marijuana, no action New York does can ever discriminate against it. You simply can’t discriminate against something Comgress has decreed shouldn’t exist.

The decision makes as much sense as the courts, despite the 13th Amendment, striking down laws because they discriminate against out-of-state slaveowners. Once you prohibit commerce in something, the commercial interest in it becomes extinguished. Those who do it anyway can’t complain about being discriminated against.

[wvattorney13]

It is de jure prohibited by federal law but it is de facto permitted in a multi billion dollar market. The feds have said that they will not enforce the prohibition against legal state marijuana systems.

I don't think the courts have to turn a blind eye to this arrangement or pretend as if it doesn't exist. The courts can rule on what IS not on what is technically on the books.

[ReaderY]

Whether the feds choose to enforce Congress’ policy has nothing to do with what Congress’ policy is. Congress’ power to override the Dormant Commerce Clause by enacting a contrary policy has nothing to do with whether that policy gets wnforced by the Executive ot not.

[wvattorney13]

So sayeth ReaderY and so sayeth the Lord?

Your declaration seems to have fallen on deaf ears in the court and is not supported by any citations.

[Jazzizhep]

It appears to me you are arguing that if one commits a federal crime, the Constitution doesn’t apply. A bit problematic?

[ReaderY]

It is the Constitution that permits Congress to override the Dormant Commerce Clause, which by default is intended to encourage interstate commerce in an item, by enacting laws discouraging that interstate commerce in that item. Of course the Constitution applies.

For example, Congress overrode a Supreme Court decision saying that the Dormant Commerce Clause prohibits states from restricting interstate commerce in toxic waste by declining to take out-of-state waste. Making interstate commerce in a commodity a crime has a similar effect. It similarly overrides the default presumption that interstate commerce in the thing is beneficial.

Congress’ power to override the Dormant Commerce Clause has long been recognized. It’s part of the constitution. It’s nonsense to say that recognizing an exercise of that powwer means “the Comstitution doesn’t apply.”

[wvattorney13]

The Rooney Rule case is odd.

First, I disagree with the concept. In many cases and in many jobs, the heir apparent has already been chosen. Larry, who worked there for 15 years, is getting the job when his boss retires. For the government or contractors who have to put out the job for open applications, they are just wasting peoples' time. They have to polish their resume, put on a suit, take time away to go for a sham interview for a job they were never going to get. Better just to hire Larry.

Second, I don't know what the proper remedy is? Send John Elway to an AA meeting? Redo the interview where the interviewer is on time (with the same background result)? Interrogate him and make him admit that he wasn't going to hire the minority candidate? If so, does the Rooney Rule require that they really, really mean it 1984 style?

I think for years the NFL has shown that they will hire qualified black coaches and this rules is just a time waster and paternalistic.

[jimc5499]

It also means that it won't fire them.

[Krayt]

In another case, the technology might be used over longer periods, with more cameras, or in combination with other tools—such as facial recognition, automated tracking or artificial intelligence—to build a far more comprehensive portrait of an individual's life."

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Do not build the tools of tyranny, then they can't be abused.

Alternatively, if it's good for the government to attach computers and AI to everythimg to track everyone all the time, it's good for The People to do it to government officials, members of Congress, and so on. This is a terrible state, but what's good for the goose, and you might just capture the occasional unsavory backroom deal at that.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

David Brin wrote a book a few years back, Transparent Society, about State surveillance. One of his topics was street cameras controlled by police. He suggested the public unease was not the cameras themselves but that people suspect cops used them to watch pretty girls or look in windows, and that one solution was to put cameras in the police watching room so the public could watch the watchers. Another idea was to get rid of the police watchers and just make all cameras publicly viewable. There's be a lot more bored grannies and teenagers and Karens looking for crime that police, and free too.

I don't like public camera or license plate scanners, but that tech genie is out of the bottle. Give the public full real-time access. The real losers would be the rich and famous. Remember Dick Cheney's energy meeting where the administration used executive privilege to not disclose who had shown up? They are the ones who have the most to lose from publicly available license plate scanners and street cameras. Neighbors and families might care about ordinary people, but millions of snoops care about the rich. If all that loss of privacy is spread among the rich and powerful as much as everyone else, it won't last long.

[wvattorney13]

"I don't like public camera or license plate scanners, but that tech genie is out of the bottle."

It doesn't have to be. The legislatures could ban their use tomorrow.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Yeah, we all know how well prohibitions work. They can't even control their own agencies, as witness the FBI et al interference in elections and the CIA's continued domestic spying. The USSR couldn't even control fax machines.

Computers and cameras are too ubiquitous to ban, and as for the software on them, impossible to ban.

[wvattorney13]

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough. The legislature could ban the fruits of the cameras in court. Or courts could do it through updated views of the Fourth Amendment.

[NvEric]

Your concerns are worthy and the solution is a good one needing enactment. I might add recording all communications. But, the better solution is to not rely on these cameras.

Any camera only captures a single angle and not the entire 'picture' of an event. Examples include the multitude of 'instant replay' in various sports and the initial angle of the George Floyd event. Thus, and therefore, these cameras are a problem in and of themselves and offer minimal supporting 'evidence'.

[Krayt]

Houston officials: Sure, it would be a taking if we deprived property owners of all economic value in their land, and, yes, our own expert says our rules make it economically impossible to do anything useful with this land right now, but it still has some value because maybe someday, in the future, that could change. Fifth Circuit: These guys are real-estate developers, not Little Orphan Annie. If there's no value today, that' s a taking.

I almost clicked on the Little Orphan Annie YouTube link, but...oh, I know what's waiting there!

[Stupid Government Tricks]

It's Annie singing "Tomorrow". I been Annie-rolled!

[Ken Arromdee]

>IJ has gone to court on behalf of bookstore owner Gil Kerley, who was fined for allowing a few homeless people to pitch tents in the back of his parking lot as long as they respected the property, his neighbors, and his customers—an arrangement that has worked just fine since it started during the pandemic.

My question here is: you're saying "as long as they respected the property, his neighbors, and his customers", but suppose that instead they were rude, insulted people (in non-harassing manners), stank, and otherwise did things that were legal but made them unpleasant to be around. Would you and the IJ now agree that they have to go?

Or is this like one of those cases where you try to create sympathy for someone by saying things like "respects his neighbors" even though you actually don't want the case to depend on it at all?

(Reading the motion for certification is even more of this. They claim the homeless are desperate and vulnerable. Fine, have you described a standard for desperation and vunerability, and agreed that if they don't meet that standard, they should be kept away? No? Then why did you say it?)

[Davy C]

They have to go? Go where, exactly?

If you make it a crime to sleep in public then you have to have some way people can avoid committing that crime. Sleep is inevitable given enough time.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Go on doorsteps?

Sleep in jail cells?

Two things you don't understand:

* Poverty was the state of man until the industrial revolution and capitalism lifted billions out of poverty. People can still live without capitalism if they are willing to live in the woods away from everybody in that same impoverished state as was natural up until 300 years ago. If people want the benefits of modern society, they have to contribute to modern society.

* Responsibility and accountability go hand in hand. Lack of accountability leads to corruption. Lack of responsibility leads to scapegoats. If people are incapacitated, incompetent, children, or otherwise unable to or unwilling to take the responsibility of contributing to society, society must make them wards to take care of them or control them. People who won't take care of themselves must expect others to take care of them in ways they may not like.

[NvEric]

"People can still live without capitalism if they are willing to live in the woods away from everybody..."

Except all land belongs to someone else ; there's no free land anymore. Squatting in remote areas does happen until there's a complaint. But, I'd say the modern homeless person does not have the skills to make it in the outback. Teaching basic frontier skills still is worthwhile - a knife and a blanket, a flint too.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

What! The government we all voted for has flaws? It oppresses the people?

*faints*

[David Nieporent]

People can still live without capitalism if they are willing to live in the woods away from everybody in that same impoverished state as was natural up until 300 years ago.

Except they can't. Privately owned woods would involve trespassing unless the owner consented, and one generally can't live in government-owned woods at all.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Gosh. Socialism solves that. I guess capitalism sucks after all.

[Sarcastr0]

People who won't take care of themselves must expect others to take care of them in ways they may not like.

Fuck this.
This is like some social darwinist shit from over a century ago.

The homeless and otherwise indigent are humans and should get some say in their treatment.

When you start equating economic ability with virtue, you've become not a capitalist or libertarian but an aristocrat.

[Ken Arromdee]

In other words you're agreeing with me. It doesn't matter if they respecrt the property, his neighbors, and his customers. It just matters that they don't have a place to sleep. Saying "respected the property, his neighbors, and his customers" is surplusage to make them sympathetic when the IJ damn well knows it doesn't matter whether that is actually true.

[David Nieporent]

If a property owner or his invited guests are disturbing the neighbors, there are already laws to deal with that scenario. They don't need special anti-homeless laws for that.

[TextFirst]

They aren't specifically anti-homeless laws. The question is whether the homeless are magically immune to generally applicable laws. Grants Pass came pretty firmly down on the "no" side.

[wvattorney13]

Agreed. It is illegal for the bookstore owner himself to pitch a tent and sleep in his parking lot. So by definition, he cannot give permission to others to do so.

I think I care for my fellow man as much as the next guy but something really has to be done about these homeless encampments. I don't think it is showing any sense of caring at all to allow these shantytowns to flourish. Locking them up in a mental institution would be kinder to them and more beneficial to everyone else.

[David Nieporent]

Why does something really need to be done about homeless encampments on private property, there with the permission of the homeowner? Nobody wants sidewalks blocked with shopping carts, tents, etc. But this was bothering nobody.

Some portion of the homeless may be mentally ill. Many are not. Locking the latter up in a mental institution is neither kind nor non-fascist.

[wvattorney13]

Who cares if it is "on private property."? There are zoning laws and sanitary laws. You can't turn your property into an open sewer.

For those homeless who are not mentally ill, they can fill out the applications for housing assistance that we generously give. Charity doesn't mean turning our communities into hell holes.

[David Nieporent]

They aren't specifically anti-homeless laws.

Yes, they are. "A tax on wearing yarmulkes is a tax on Jews."

[TextFirst]

Most of these people would straighten up and fly right if there were consequences to their actions. For those that can't or won't, we're better off incarcerating them. Given how much chaos, destruction and expense the homeless cause it's literally cheaper to incarcerate them in minimum security than to let them roam free. We're effectively paying the cost of incarcerating them without getting the benefits of incarcerating them, because they're still costing a bundle while sacking our cities.

[Krayt]

Eighth Circuit (en banc): Arkansas's ban on gender-transition procedures for minors is constitutional under Skrmetti. Its ban on referrals for gender-transition procedures for minors doesn't violate the First Amendment, because we're interpreting it to apply only to formal referrals for treatment by in-state providers who are already prohibited from providing that treatment.

Hmmmmm. Not cool, but predictable.

Loudly asserting properly, legally-defined medical care authorizes silencing alternate opinions under the theory any deviation from The Law's medical care is behavior, or practice, or something. Just not speech.

"We meant for them, not us!"

I assume they could get away with "I cannot refer you in the doctor's referal sense, but here are some nearby out of state clinics where you can get this done."

Or maybe not. Pour through Democratic hot air on the subject the past decade to find arguments to push against it.