Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzalez
Case Overview
CITATION
ARGUED ON
DECIDED ON
545 U.S. 748
March 21, 2005
June 27, 2005
DECIDED BY
Legal Issue
Is there a constitutional right to police enforcement of a domestic violence restraining order?
Holding
No, neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Civil Rights Act of 1871 created a constitutional right to the enforcement of a domestic violence restraining order.
Jessica Gonzalez and her children, Rebecca, Katheryn, and Leslie.
Background
In 1999, Jessica Gonzalez and her husband got divorced. As a condition of those proceedings, a restraining order against Gonzalez’s husband was granted by a state trial court on May 21, ordering that her husband not “molest or disturb the peace” of their children and that he maintain a distance of at least 100 feet from the family home. On the restraining order, it also stated that law enforcement should “use every reasonable means to enforce” it, and that they shall make an arrest if they have probable cause that there was a violation or an attempt to violate the order. On June 4, the order was modified by the trial court to allow Gonzalez’s husband to spend time with the three children every other weekend and for some time in the summer. The modified order also allowed for a midweek dinner “arranged by the parties” upon “reasonable notice” and provided him access to the home for those purposes only.
Around 5:30pm on June 22, Gonzalez’s husband took their children from the family home as they played outside. Around 7:30pm, Gonzalez contacted the Castle Rock Police Department, and two officers were dispatched. Gonzalez showed the officers the restraining order against her husband, but they stated that she needed to wait until 10pm before they could do anything. Shortly after, she contacted her husband, and he stated that he was taking the children to an amusement park in Denver. At 10pm, Gonzalez again contacted the police, but she was told to wait until midnight. At midnight, she again contacted the police and was told that an officer was on the way, but they never arrived. About an hour later, Gonzalez went to the police station and submitted an incident report, but no reasonable effort was made to locate her children, and the officer instead went to dinner. At 3:20am, Gonzalez’s husband arrived at the police station and opened fire with a gun that he purchased earlier the same night. The police returned fire, and he was killed. When the police searched the inside of his vehicle, they discovered the bodies of the three children, who he had murdered earlier that night. As the legal representative of her children, Gonzalez sued the police officers of the Town of Castle Rock, Colorado under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act based on their refusal to enforce the restraining order against her husband. The U.S. District Court for Colorado dismissed her case, but their decision was reversed by an en banc hearing of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court then granted certiorari.
Summary
7 - 2 decision for the Town of Castle Rock
Romer
Evans
Ginsburg
Souter
Kennedy
Stevens
Thomas
O’Connor
Rehnquist
Breyer
Scalia
Opinion of the Court
Writing for the Court, Justice Antonin Scalia began by distinguishing the difference between a benefit and entitlement granted by the government. The Tenth Circuit emphasized that the statutory language of the notice of the restraining order provided to law enforcement established an entitlement requiring that the order be responded to if the necessary conditions were met. Scalia responded to their holding, however, stating that police discretion required stronger language than that contained within the relevant statutes and pointed to several examples where the same language was used but mandatory enforcement was clearly not the intent. From this, Scalia determined that law enforcement cannot be expected to be without discretion in their enforcement of restraining orders. He stated, “such indeterminacy is not the hallmark of a duty of a duty that is mandatory. Nor can someone be safely deemed ‘entitled’ to something when the identity of the alleged entitlement is vague.”
Scalia also addressed the claim that the individual enforcement of protection orders constituted a property interest under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, responding that even if an entitlement to the order’s enforcement had been created, there was no monetary interest involved. Scalia ultimately concluded that while the State of Colorado maintained the right to create a framework for claims to be made under the circumstances of this case, the Court did not find that one had been created under existing law.
Dissenting Opinion of Justice Harlan
In his dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed with the Court’s holding that the intent of the statutory language in question was not the mandatory enforcement of domestic violence restraining orders. Stevens explained that the statute was passed during a nationwide movement aimed at reducing domestic violence and the underenforcement of domestic violence restraining orders. He asserted that “[g]iven that Colorado law has quite clearly eliminated the police’s discretion to deny enforcement, ... [Gonzalez] had a legitimate claim of enforcement.” Stevens also responded to the Court’s holding that Gonzalez had no property interest, pointing out that the Court has expanded its interpretation of property interests to include a variety of state benefits and services. He further admonished the police department for their “callous policy of failing to respond properly” and found that Gonzalez had been afforded nothing more than a “sham or pretense”. He concluded, stating that “[t]he failure to observe these minimal procedural safeguards creates an unacceptable risk of arbitrary and erroneous deprivations.”