The Legal Aid Justice Center says the laws criminalize an illness — alcohol addiction — simply because their homeless clients have nowhere to drink privately.

“This is a civil rights violation, plain and simple,” Mary Frances Charlton, an attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center, said in a news release.

The laws “create a crime where none exists, and place criminal sanctions on individuals who are guilty of nothing more than being homeless and addicted to alcohol — ultimately placing even more obstacles between them and the help that they severely need,” Charlton said.

Caldwell said he does not believe the laws constitute cruel and unusual punishment, because the people deemed habitual drunkards typically have been found to be drunk in public numerous times in a calendar year.

The laws are meant to keep drunken people off the streets. The criminal justice system long has been in charge of addressing the problem, but perhaps a better system can be developed, Caldwell said.

Bryan Manning, a plaintiff in the case who has been jailed more than 30 times under the statute, said in a news release from the justice center that he has spent the majority of the past five years in the Roanoke City Jail because of his status as a habitual drunkard.