Appeals Court Sides With Boulder On Homeless Camping Restrictions

By Leah Fraser | Hoodline

Boulder can keep ticketing and jailing people for sleeping outside, at least for now. A Colorado Court of Appeals panel on Thursday upheld the city’s ban on camping and sleeping on public property, turning aside a constitutional challenge that said the rules amount to cruel and unusual punishment under state law. The three-judge panel ruled that the ordinances target conduct – pitching a tent, sleeping with a blanket or otherwise sheltering outdoors – not the status of being unhoused, leaving the city’s tent and blanket bans in place while advocates decide whether to take the fight to a higher court.

The opinion, issued May 14, 2026, was written by Judge W. Eric Kuhn, who concluded that, “no matter how sympathetic their plight, these circumstances alone don’t create new state constitutional rights,” according to Courthouse News. The appeal was brought by Feet Forward and a group of unhoused residents and taxpayers challenging two Boulder ordinances widely known as the “Blanket Ban” and the “Tent Ban.” The panel – Judges Kuhn, Terry Fox and Grant Sullivan – also found “no substantive differences” between Colorado’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment and the federal Eighth Amendment.

How The Supreme Court Shaped The Ruling

The Colorado judges leaned heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which held that enforcing anti-camping ordinances does not automatically violate the Eighth Amendment, according to Justia. That 6-3 ruling, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, stressed that the Eighth Amendment mainly limits the type and method of punishment, rather than sweeping away laws that regulate conduct closely tied to a person’s status.

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