In Virginia, a group of alcoholic homeless individuals challenged a statute criminalizing the consumption, possession or purchase of alcohol by an individual interdicted by a Virginia court; interdiction is a civil order where one is labeled a “habitual drunkard” or has been convicted of driving while intoxicated. Id.

—the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, invalidated Virginia's interdiction scheme on two grounds. "First, the court held that the statutory scheme was unconstitutionally vague because it failed to establish" any standard of conduct by which persons [could] determine whether they [we] re violating the statute. ""

Additionally, because the Virginia scheme does not distinguish between private and public conduct, the term "habitual drunkard" lends itself to arbitrary enforcement of the interdiction process against homeless individuals in particular.

The vast majority of Equal Protection challenges are subject to a rational basis review, that is, whether the law is rationally related to some legitimate government interest.

—over a dissent, held that "although states may not criminalize status, they may criminalize actual behavior even when the individual alleges that addiction created a strong urge to engage in a particular act."

After a panel of this Court affirmed the district court in this case, we voted to rehear the case en banc, and so vacated the panel opinion.

In Robinson, the Court held a statute that made the "status" of drug addiction a criminal offence "inflicts a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment

—rejecting an Eighth Amendment challenge to Virginia' s interdiction statute, which plaintiffs claimed criminalized their status as homeless alcoholics

In Manning I, for example, he compared the compulsive drinking of an alcoholic to a child molester' s “uncontrollable pedophilic urges

The appellants relied on Justice White' s opinion in Powell, arguing the statute criminalized their status as homeless alcoholic, violating their Eighth Amendment rights.

[PDF] Constitutional Law–Ninth Circuit Decision Presents Public Health Dilemma …

[CITATION] Addiction X Criminal Law