A few days ago the US Supreme Court refused to take an appeal from a 9th Circuit case that took a constitutional stand for homeless people. The 9th Circuit sad that it is cruel and unusual punishment for the city of Boise, pursuant to authority from the State of Idaho, to criminalize sleeping in outdoor public places such as parks and sidewalks. SCOTUS refused to take that up. What are we to make of this? I offer the following thought. This is yet another piece of evidence that the deliberations of SCOTUS are not what the ideologues always make them out to be. Ideologues of left and right count heads -- five appointed by Presidents of Party left, 4 appointed by members of Party right. Ah, the decisions will naturally be leftward, as ideologues understand it. Or, if the count comes out the other way, so will the results. Even most ideologues will sometimes admit that there are lots of issues before the court that don't offer themselves neatly as left-versus-...
