Professor Stephen Schnably discussed the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson case that went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which considers the question of whether Grants Pass enforcing its laws regulating camping on public property is cruel and unusual punishment. Schnably, who has been at the forefront of homeless law for decades, looks at the laws criminalizing homelessness that are taking effect across the U.S. Listen here to Season 12, Episode 10 of the Explainer.
Schnably has been a cooperating attorney with the ACLU for three decades in matters related to the criminalization of homelessness. He was co-counsel for Plaintiffs in Pottinger v. City of Miami from 1994 to 2020. The Pottinger consent decree, approved by the federal district court in 1998, modified in 2014, and terminated in 2019, has been hailed as “the gold standard” in civil rights litigation to protect the constitutional rights of individuals experiencing homelessness.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity, which seeks to end criminalization of homelessness as a matter of racial justice. He has also testified as an expert witness in state and federal court on international human rights law, served as a consultant to public defenders’ offices on international human rights law and juvenile justice, and represented petitioners before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
