Deputy U.S. Solicitor Gen. Ed Kneedler urged the court to adopt that approach. While cities should not make it a crime for homeless people to sleep outdoors, cities should have "flexibility to enforce" reasonable restrictions on where homeless people can sleep, he said.

Many cities in California, including Los Angeles, generally follow that approach.

Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett may hold the deciding votes. Both questioned laws that would punish homeless people for sleeping outdoors, but as Kavanaugh put it, they doubted the wisdom of having federal judges "micromanage" a city's policies for coping with homelessness.

The case of Grants Pass vs. Johnson is the most important dispute over homelessness to come before the high court.

At issue is whether the Constitution protects the rights of homeless people who camp on sidewalks or in parks.

The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit held it is cruel and unusual punishment for cities or their police to arrest or fine people who sleep in public because they have nowhere else to go.

City attorneys say those rulings have led to the growth of homeless encampments in California and the West, and they urged the justices to overturn the 9th Circuit.

Advocates for homeless people said a ruling in favor of Grants Pass would allow cities to make it a crime for poor people to sleep outside.

The justices will meet behind close doors on Thursday to vote on deciding the case, and they are likely to hand down a ruling late June.

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