Home > Journals > WMLR > Vol. 67 (2025-2026) > Iss. 4 (2026)
William & Mary Law Review
Abstract
This Article examines City of Grants Pass v. Johnson as an important development in the Supreme Court’s doctrine concerning the Constitution’s “innocence limit.” This limit is a fundamental boundary on the state’s power to punish; it provides that criminal punishment may only apply to that which is morally culpable or blameworthy and thus may not apply to wholly innocent conduct. This principle was famously expressed in Robinson v. California, but this Article identifies a broader network of cases in which the Court has consistently effectuated the innocence limit and intervened against prosecutions of the innocent. This Article observes that the Court has been especially vigilant in enforcing the innocence limit in cases of pretextual criminal punishment—situations in which society’s hostility towards a stigmatized group manifests in the use of criminal punishment to harm or ostracize unwanted people. Grants Pass presented a startling example of this type of case, and yet the Court failed entirely to recognize it. This Article teases apart the different iterations of the innocence limit evident in the Court’s doctrine and reflects on the continuing importance of the limit in the aftermath of Grants Pass.