From Reason:
A man's car is his castle. So declared the Washington Supreme Court, more or less, when it ruled last August that the city of Seattle could not impound a homeless man's truck and require him to pay nearly $550 in towing and storage costs. Nor could the city sell the man's truck, his sole source of shelter, at auction to pay off his debts.
The justices held that Seattle's practice violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of excessive fines and fees. It was one of the first times a state high court had applied the Excessive Fines Clause since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that it constrains the states.
The ruling was significant not just for Eighth Amendment jurisprudence but also for the rights of homeless people. The court found that the plaintiff's truck qualified as his homestead.
According to the court's opinion, there are nearly 12,000 homeless people in Washington's King County, more than 2,000 of whom live in vehicles. Cities across the country have been trying to deal with the public nuisance of tent camps and people living in their cars. But their solutions have amounted to little more than rousting indigent people from one spot to another. Continue reading >>>
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