WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- The Supreme Court Tuesday unanimously upheld the Department of Housing and Urban Development's policy of kicking people out of public housing if any member of a household is caught using illegal drugs.
The policy applies whether the tenant knew about someone else's drug use, and whether the drug use occurred on public housing property.
"With drug dealers increasingly imposing a reign of terror" at public housing complexes, Congress felt compelled to enact the law that requires the policy, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said in announcing the decision.
Moreover, the language of the law is unambiguous, Rehnquist said, and "no-fault eviction is a common feature of landlord-tenant law."
Federal law requires public housing leases to contain a clause saying "any drug-related criminal activity on or off premises engaged in by a public housing tenant, any member of the tenant's household or any guest or other person under the tenant's control, shall be cause for termination of tenancy."
Rehnquist said the statute does not raise constitutional concerns because there is no criminal punishment or civil penalty involved, just the invocation of a lease provision to which a tenant has already agreed.
"I think it's a disappointing decision," Steven Shapiro, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union said from New York after the decision was handed down. The ACLU had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case in support of tenants.
"It threatens poor people with eviction for activity they did not know about and could not control," Shapiro said.
Rehnquist's point that tenants had agreed to the eviction policy "is at odds with reality," Shapiro added. "These are people who have nowhere else to go."
Washington attorney Fernando Laguarda was part of a legal team at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo that represented more than 30 groups across the country fighting domestic violence.
The groups' brief in support of the tenants in the case points out that HUD also applies the eviction policy to "any criminal activity that threatens the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment" of public housing that is committed by the tenant, any member of a household or someone supposedly under a tenant's control.
"I don't think the court got it right," Laguarda said, "but they did send a message to the agency: While they have the authority to evict, they can't exercise that authority in an unfettered manner."
Laguarda said local housing authorities are applying the policy in an inconsistent way, "where in some cases, victims of domestic violence are evicted because they've been abused."
The attorney said Congress has shown a desire to protect victims of domestic abuse, and should take another look at statute that drives the HUD policy.
In the case before the court, the HUD policy was challenged by four elderly tenants in Oakland, Calif.
The four tenants were the targets of eviction proceedings in state court in late 1997 and early 1998.
Pearlie Rucker, 63, had lived in public housing since 1985. The Oakland Housing Authority alleged that her daughter, who lives with her, was "found with cocaine and a crack cocaine pipe three blocks from Rucker's apartment." However, OHA sought and obtained a dismissal of the complaint in February 1998.
Willie Lee, 78, is a woman who had lived in public housing for more than 25 years. OHA alleged that Lee's grandson, who lives with her, was caught smoking marijuana in the public housing parking lot.
Barbara Hill, 63, had lived in public housing for more than 30 years. Her grandson was caught with Lee's grandson smoking marijuana, OHA said.
Finally, Herman Walker, 75, is disabled and had lived in public housing 10 years, and requires an in-home caregiver. OHA said that three times in two months, the caregiver and two others were caught with cocaine inside Walker's apartment.
After the eviction proceedings began in state court, the four tenants filed suit against HUD in federal court. They asked a federal judge for an injunction preventing eviction of an "innocent" tenant.
A federal judge issued the injunction, saying eviction in these circumstances would be "irrational" and therefore unconstitutional.
A divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the judge, but the full circuit court reversed the panel by a 7-4 vote. The majority said HUD was misinterpreting Congress's intention when it passed the law.
Acting for HUD, the Justice Department then asked the Supreme Court for review. The appeals court itself acknowledged that many "of our nation's poor live in public housing projects that, by many accounts, are little more than illegal drug markets and war zones," the department told the Supreme Court.
The appeals court ruling "neutralizes an important tool that Congress designed to assist in ridding public housing of the scourge of drug-related criminal activity," the Justice Department argued.
The Supreme Court heard the case on Feb. 19.
Tuesday's decision reverses the appeals court ruling, and sends the case back down for a new hearing and ruling based on the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion.
Justice Stephen Breyer, whose brother is one of the federal judges who ruled earlier in the case, did not participate in the Supreme Court consideration of the case or in Tuesday's decision.
All other members of the Supreme Court agreed with Rehnquist's opinion.
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(No. 00-1770, HUD vs. Rucker et al)
