Bernie and Lairer on WNYC, now to some consequential opinions released by the Supreme Court this morning with rulings on homelessness,

the so-called Chevron deference, which could affect how rulemaking

is done at the federal government for public health, as we were discussing with Dr. Fauci and all

kinds of things. Also, the so-called Fisher case on many of the January 6th prosecutions,

including Donald Trump's, will have to wait for the decision on Trump's presidential immunity and a couple of other cases until Monday.

But we continue to be lucky enough to have a scholar of constitutional law on standby for these opinion days.

And so we are joined once more for this week by Aziz Huck, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School

and author of the forthcoming, The Rule of Law, a very short introduction.

Hello again, Professor Huck, and welcome back.

Good morning, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Well, let's take these in the order they were released.

The first case to come down today was City of Grants Pass, Oregon versus Gloria Johnson.

This was about homeless encampments and whether local governments can have laws against camping.

In other words, sleeping in public spaces if you have no home or whether that represents cruel and unusual

punishment since homelessness is not a choice that people make voluntarily usually.

And the court said?

The court said that states are free to impose criminal sanctions on the homeless who are camped or sleeping outside without regard to the Eighth Amendment.

In effect, the court limited earlier decisions prohibiting states of the federal government from criminalizing actions or states that people cannot voluntarily control, for

example, certain medical conditions, as a basis for criminality. As Justice Sotomayor said in

dissent, the effect of the ruling is to say that cities and states can penalize

people for having to sleep in public where they simply do not have anywhere else to go.

This was a straight, six three, Republican appointees versus Democratic appointees, vote, so to Major's dissent,

...