Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone

[Coastie for Truth]

WASHINGTON, June 27 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.

The decision, with an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia and dissents from Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, overturned a ruling by a federal appeals court in Colorado. The appeals court had permitted a lawsuit to proceed against a Colorado town, Castle Rock, for the failure of the police to respond to a woman's pleas for help after her estranged husband violated a protective order by kidnapping their three young daughters, whom he eventually killed.

For hours on the night of June 22, 1999, Jessica Gonzales tried to get the Castle Rock police to find and arrest her estranged husband, Simon Gonzales, who was under a court order to stay 100 yards away from the house. He had taken the children, ages 7, 9 and 10, as they played outside, and he later called his wife to tell her that he had the girls at an amusement park in Denver.

Ms. Gonzales conveyed the information to the police, but they failed to act before Mr. Gonzales arrived at the police station hours later, firing a gun, with the bodies of the girls in the back of his truck. The police killed him at the scene.

According to Linda Greenhouse, the theory of the lawsuit Ms. Gonzales filed in federal district court in Denver was that Colorado law had given her an enforceable right to protection by instructing the police, on the court order, that "you shall arrest" or issue a warrant for the arrest of a violator. This was argued to create a "property interest" within the meaning of the 14th Amendment's due process guarantee, which prohibits the deprivation of property without due process.

Greenhouse noted that a 1989 decision, DeShaney v. Winnebago County, held that the failure by county social service workers to protect a young boy from a beating by his father did not breach any substantive constitutional duty. In the present case Mrs. Gonzales framed her case as one of "process" rather than "substance". Ms. Gonzales and her lawyers hoped to find a way around the DeShaney precedent.

Sorry! The majority saw little difference between the earlier case and this one, Castle Rock v. Gonzales, No. 04-278. Ms. Gonzales did not have a "property interest" in enforcing the restraining order, Justice Scalia said, adding that "such a right would not, of course, resemble any traditional conception of property."

What is Ms. Gonzales - or others similarly situated - to do?

:nuke:
AMENDMENT II - A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
:nuke:

[rpannier]

1. I heard this story on the radio this afternoon

Very tragic. Unfortunately, that's what you'll hear from the NRA. We all have to arm ourselves.

[silverweb]

2. Does this mean...

...that all those police departments that have "to protect and serve" on their squad cars, badges, etc, will have to remove that slogan?

I mean, it would only be right. Truth in advertising and all that....

[Senior citizen]

3. They can just add the word "property." n/t

[silverweb]

4. Good point.

:(