Three San Diego law firms -- Dreher Law Firm, Cohelan & Khoury, and the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program -- representing nine homeless people, filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the City of San Diego and the San Diego Police Department today, seeking an injunction preventing further ticketing of homeless people for sleeping in public.

The lawsuit claims that the citations, which have increased dramatically during the past two years, violate the civil rights of homeless people who have nowhere to sleep. The financially strapped city, already battered by FBI and SEC investigations into a billion-dollar pension fund deficit and with three of its council members under indictment on charges of accepting bribes, collects fines ranging up to $100 for each citation.

"With the homeless shelters full to overflowing, these people literally have no place where they can legally sleep," said Tim Cohelan and Scott Dreher, the lawyers who filed the case. "Sleep isn't a choice, it's a necessity. The Constitution of the United States says you can't punish someone in that situation."

Citing the results of scientific studies showing that lack of sleep adversely affects brain functioning, immune system activity, and decrease in body temperature, leading to illness and impaired judgment, the lawsuit alleges that the City's sleeping-ticket practices pose a danger to the public and waste precious financial and law enforcement resources which the City can ill afford.