If the Supreme Court takes up Taylor v. Singleton, it could be the sum of all fears for the most vulnerable Americans.
Matt Ford at The New Republic:
Alabama and 19 other Republican-led states areĀ asking the Supreme CourtĀ to blow up more than a century of First Amendment precedents. In their place, they are urging the high courtās conservative majority to replace them with an originalist history-and-tradition test that would wipe away many of the free speech protections that American currently enjoy. Taylor v. SingletonĀ is ostensibly about whether Alabama can criminally punish a man for holding a sign asking for help under the First Amendment. Beneath the surface, however, the GOP attorneys general are hoping to pull off a counterrevolution against Americaās rich, enduring tradition of free speech and expression. The case began with a homeless man in Montgomery, Alabama. Jonathan Singleton, who is indigent and unhoused, often holds up signs along the stateās highways and sidewalks to call attention to his plight. As a result, according to his lawyers, he has been cited six times for violating the stateās pedestrian solicitation statute.
The most recent sign barely counted as solicitation or begging: It simply read, āHOMELESS. Today it is me, tomorrow it could be you.ā Singleton was holding up the sign on the grassy side of a highway exit when last cited. In 2020, he filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the Alabama solicitation ban, as well as a counterpart law that banned loitering āin a public place for the purpose of begging.ā Efforts to criminalize homelessness have been met with a mixed reception at the Supreme Court. In June 2024, the justices held inĀ Grants Pass v. JohnsonĀ that an Oregon cityās ordinance against sleeping and camping in public spaces did not violate the Eighth Amendmentās ban on cruel and unusual punishment, even if the defendants had nowhere else to go. The high courtās decision overturned a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to the contrary and gave Western states broad latitude to criminalize homelessness. On the other hand, the Supreme Court has also struck down multiple state and local statutes that seek to criminalize public solicitation. In the 1980 caseĀ Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment,Ā for example, the courtĀ rejectedĀ a Chicago suburbās ordinance that sought to restrict public solicitation unless a group in question met certain budgetary and licensing conditions. Such requirements, the court ruled, were too sweeping and poorly tailored to survive First Amendment scrutiny. Justice Byron White noted in his majority opinion that while the court had sometimes allowed states to ban commercial solicitation, it had generally resisted restrictions on charitable solicitations, even in residential neighborhoods, because doing so could infringe upon the solicitorsā free speech and free exercise rights.
Alabamaās ordinances covered a wide range of expressive signs and actions. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, or ALEA, one of the defendants in theĀ SingletonĀ case, āhas made arrests under the begging statute for holding a sign that said āhomeless anything will helpā; for holding āa plastic jarā for āBirmingham Restoration Ministriesā; and for approaching vehicles with a hat in hand āin an effort to beg,āā Singletonās lawyers told the high court. For that reason, it is unsurprising that the city of Montgomery and its police department reached settlements with Singleton at an early stage of the litigation. But the state of Alabama, which represented ALEA, did not settle. It first took a defeat in the district court to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with Singleton. A three-judge panel concluded last April that begging was constitutionally protected speech under the circuitās prior precedents, in line with the Supreme Courtās solicitation rulings, and that it was bound by that precedent until the Supreme Court says otherwise.
Now Alabama has asked the Supreme Court to intervene and hopes to establish that begging is not a constitutionally protected right. āGovernments need āthe full panoply of tools in the policy toolboxā to address the homelessness crisis plaguing their streets,ā the state claimed in one of its briefs, quoting from the Supreme Courtās ruling inĀ Grants Pass.Ā āRegulating begging is one such tool, prophylactically turning off one spigot to downstream harms like public intoxication, drug abuse, and encampments before they happen.ā
The Taylor v. Singleton court case that SCOTUS could take up could a big concern for the 1st Amendment and the rights of the unhoused.
