The 8th Amendment, which protects citizens from cruel and unusual punishment, guarantees people the right to engage in activities fundamental to human life: to sit, to rest, to sleep.
The Recorder editorial from July 21 would seem to take an ambivalent view of these protections. Living on the Greenfield Common is no one’s preferred solution. Our civic responsibility is to every citizen, no matter how impoverished, and in striving for more desirable, just outcomes, we must also defend human rights.
Otis Wheeler, Sarah Ahern
Greenfield