Citing to sweeping, venerable core case law on the civil rights of individuals in public places, the Ninth Circuit on June 19 overturned Los Angeles' Municipal Code Sec. 85.02 statute against use of vehicles for habitation.

The ruling in Desertrain v. City of Los Angeles potentially reduces city governments' control over the uses and appearance of public spaces. On the other hand it enhances the ability of people who have lost conventional housing to use their vehicles for some of the purposes of a home, rather than face the riskier, more stereotypically "homeless" situations of lugging possessions by hand on city streets or relying fully on institutional shelters and services.

The Ninth Circuit opinion, by Judge Harry Pregerson, found the Los Angeles ordinance unconstitutionally vague on the grounds that "Plaintiffs are left guessing as to what behavior would subject them to citation and arrest by an officer," and that the ordinance encouraged arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement against homeless people.

The opinion reviewed the circumstances of four plaintiffs cited and arrested for allegedly living in their cars during a Venice-area enforcement campaign in fall 2010. (Seven plaintiffs are named in the caption, but a footnote explains that some received parking tickets while parked with disability placards, and the parties agreed those tickets were a mistake.)

In all of the described cases, the cited parties kept possessions in their vehicles, but two slept in their vehicles at night only while parked on private property by permission. A third, warned against sleeping in his car, "then began sleeping on the sidewalk, which is legal," and at times slept in a shelter. The fourth, when arrested, insisted he was not sleeping, but was told "that sleeping is not the only criteria for violating Section 85.02."

The opinion further recounted evidence of conflicting understandings among city officers about the meaning of the ordinance. It said that while legitimate health and safety issues were raised about the conditions in which vehicle campers were living, "some of the conduct plaintiffs were engaged in when arrested -- eating, talking on the phone, or escaping the rain in their vehicles -- mimics the everyday conduct of many Los Angeles residents."

It concluded that the law "is so vague that it fails to give notice of the conduct it actually prohibits," and as interpreted by city police, was "incompatible with the concept of an evenhanded administration of the law to the poor and to the rich that is fundamental to a democratic society."

The opinion quoted at length from Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, the exceptionally literary 1970 Supreme Court opinion by Justice William O. Douglas that overturned, as void for vagueness, old-style vagrancy laws that formerly authorized arrest for statuses such as unemployment and for ill-defined offenses such as "loitering".

Pregerson was joined in the opinion by Judges Marsha S. Berzon and Morgan Christen. Their decision overturned a 2011 district court ruling that had backed the city and arresting officers in cross-motions for summary judgment. As a threshold matter, the Ninth Circuit found it proper to consider the plaintiffs' vagueness challenge to the ordinance, raised in the Plaintiffs' motion, although they did not raise the vagueness aspect of their constitutional argument until after filing their first amended complaint. The local district court had refused to consider the merits of the vagueness challenge.

Mark Ryavec, head of the Venice Stakeholders Association, and a campaigner against campers on Venice streets, complained to the Los Angeles Times, "It leaves people who are mentally ill, criminally inclined or lethal on your doorstep and removes any possibility the police can do anything about it."

The decision does not necessarily grant blanket permission to sleep in vehicles in all circumstances. Vehicular residents are potentially affected by many laws, including parking restrictions, vehicle codes, and disorderly-conduct statutes that prohibit many kinds of living activities on public property. It remains to be seen how much Desertrain may hold back the use of such additional measures.

However, the case has already been recognized as having important effects throughout California. William Abrams, a consulting professor at Stanford who has represented vehicular residents in Palo Alto, told a local paper he thought the holding "will apply completely if we were to have to go to court" over Palo Alto's ordinance against vehicle sleeping.

Activist attorney Carol Sobel, who represented the plaintiffs, told the KPCC radio station that since her clients did not sleep in their vehicles on public property, the case for them was principally about the ability to use vehicles on a public street in the daytime without being singled out for having certain kinds of property in their vehicles. She said in the radio interview that all four of her clients had been arrested under the invalidated statute, which was defined as a misdemeanor, and two lost their vehicles to towing. Asked whether tolerating vehicle habitation created sanitation concerns, or whether it reduced pressure to provide real housing, she said the answer to needs for sanitation and for housing wasn't to put people in jail.

Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer told the press he would not appeal the decision but would seek to redraft the ordinance instead. He told the LA Times, "We need to make a break from the past ... and commit ourselves to grappling with the issues that create homelessness in the first place."

[Disclosure: Martha Bridegam has represented vehicular residents and people charged with "quality of life" offenses as a volunteer attorney in San Francisco.]

Links:

  • Ninth Circuit Desertrain opinion: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/06/19/11-56957.pdf
  • Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville: http://laws.findlaw.com/us/405/156.html
  • LA Times: http://lat.ms/1nRqyz4, http://lat.ms/T3Akmm
  • KPCC (SoCal Public Radio): http://bit.ly/1j4mW8G
  • AP: http://bit.ly/1nwDyHr
  • Guardian (UK): http://bit.ly/1roYtQq
  • Palo Alto Weekly: http://bit.ly/1lKKzsw
  • Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1rd9DYp