When homelessness was on the rise during the 1980s, homeless individuals living in Miami were being overtly targeted by the city of Miami police department. In 1988, a class action lawsuit was filed against the city by over 6,000 homeless plaintiffs. These plaintiffs alleged that Miami police had a “custom, practice and policy of arresting, harassing and otherwise interfering with homeless people for engaging in basic activities of daily life, including sleeping and eating in the public places where they are forced to live.” Additionally, the city of Miami police were accused of routinely seizing and destroying the property of homeless Miamians, failing to follow the city’s inventory procedures regarding the seizures of personal property. These unlawful harassments, seizures, destruction, and continual arrests were claimed to be a violation of the plaintiffs’ Fourth, Eighth, and 14th Amendment rights by the city of Miami. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable seizures of personal property and searches of persons, including prohibiting police authorities from arresting people without first having probable cause and obtaining a warrant. The plaintiffs in Pottinger alleged that the seizure and destruction of their personal property — as well as being arrested for life-sustaining activities — were violations of the Fourth Amendment. The Eighth Amendment protects people from excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment. In Pottinger, the arrests for life-sustaining activities — along with bail and fines for poor people — were seen as violations of the Eighth Amendment. The 14th Amendment ensures that states do not infringe upon the rights and privileges that are guaranteed by the Constitution. As such, the plaintiffs in Pottinger also purported that the anti-homeless ordinances passed by the city of Miami were infringing upon their constitutional rights. The Southern District of Florida sided with the plaintiff class, and the city of Miami was required to agree to a consent decree.
The Pottinger consent decree required the city of Miami to adopt a policy that was “to protect the constitutional rights of homeless persons, to prevent arrests and harassment of these persons, and to prevent the destruction of their property.” The city of Miami was also required to ensure that city employees who held responsibilities overseeing the homeless population were to be made aware of the rules of this policy and to comply with them; the city was also required to penalize police officers and city employees who violated the policy. The decree was terminated in 2019, after the city asserted that “the world [had] changed in the past 30 years.”