‘Having Cancer Is Not The Same As Being Homeless, Right?’: Roberts Grills Atty On Status Vs. Conduct

Forbes Breaking News

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00 >> A number of us, I think, are having difficulty with the distinction between status and conduct.

00:08 You'll acknowledge, won't you, that in those terms there's a difference between being addicted

00:13 to drugs and being homeless?

00:15 In other words, someone who's homeless can immediately become not homeless, right, if

00:20 they find shelter.

00:23 Someone who is addicted to drugs, it's not so easy.

00:26 It seems to me that in Robinson it's much easier to understand the drug addiction as

00:30 an ongoing status.

00:32 Well, here I think it is different because you can move into and out of and into and

00:36 out of the status, as you would put it, as being homeless.

00:40 >> So it's interesting, we today understand addiction as an immutable status.

00:45 In Robinson the court suggested that someone might be recovered and no longer have the

00:50 status of addiction.

00:52 So the Robinson court wasn't thinking about addiction as something that couldn't change

00:56 over time.

00:57 >> Well, that may limit the applicability of Robinson to a different situation, but

01:01 what is the analytic approach to deciding whether something's a status or a situation

01:07 of conduct?

01:08 >> So the question is, status is something that a person is when they're not doing anything.

01:15 So being addicted, having cancer, being poor are all statuses that you have apart from

01:21 any conduct.

01:22 >> Having cancer is not the same as being homeless, right?

01:24 I mean, maybe I'm just repeating myself because homelessness can, you can remove the homeless

01:31 status in an instant if you move to a shelter or situations otherwise change.

01:36 And of course it can be moved the other way as well if you're kicked out of the shelter

01:40 or whatever.

01:41 So that is a distinction from all these other things that have been labeled status, isn't

01:44 it?

01:45 >> I don't think so because, you know, a cancer patient can go into remission, they no longer

01:48 have that status.

01:50 I don't think, I mean, I don't think there's any question that being poor is a status.

01:53 It's something you are apart from anything you do.

01:56 It's a status that can change over time and at that point you wouldn't be a part of the

02:00 class.

02:01 But I don't think it changes the fact that it is a status.

02:04 And what Robinson found so offensive about status--

02:06 >> Well, I guess, is being a bank robber a status?

02:09 >> No, because being a bank robber means you rob banks.

02:13 So the definition and the conduct--

02:15 >> Violating this ordinance means upon being asked to leave, you don't leave.

02:19 >> Violating this ordinance means you're homeless.

02:21 So again, homelessness is not something you can-- that you do, it's just something that

02:26 you are.

02:27 And so the question becomes when you attach the universal human attribute of sleeping

02:31 or breathing to that status, does it make the punishment conduct-based instead of status-based?

02:36 I think the answer is--

Category

Transcript

Recommended