Castle Rock, Colorado June 4, 1999
Jessica Lenahan-Gonzales gets a restraining order against her husband, Simon.
Though the two had long been separated, she got the restraining order because he had been
stalking her.
The order said Simon could not go within 100 yards of Jessica or her four children except
during a specific visitation time.
On June 22, Simon violated the order and abducted three of the children, the three who were
his biological daughters, aged 7, 9, and 10.
Jessica called the Castle Rock police four times and visited the police station in person,
desperately trying to get them to look for and arrest Simon.
However, the police refused, telling her to just wait to see if he would return the children.
They justified not looking for Simon by saying that he had told Jessica he was taking them
to an amusement park, and, like I said, Simon was indeed occasionally allowed to take the
children for small amounts of time.
Well, in the early hours of June 23rd, Simon showed up to the Castle Rock police station
with a gun he had purchased just a few hours before.
He burst in and started shooting.
The police returned fire and killed him.
They then searched his vehicle where they found all three daughters dead.
Simon had apparently murdered them before he got to the police station.
Gonzales sued the city of Castle Rock, its police department, and the three police officers
who didn’t attempt to find her estranged husband after she pleaded with them to do
so.
She argued their inaction directly not only led to the deaths of her three daughters,
but specifically went against the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the
Constitution.
However, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado dismissed the
case, saying the Castle Rock police had qualified immunity, which means those working on behalf
of the government are not liable for bad things happening UNLESS those working on behalf of
the government CLEARLY went against a constitutional right.
So Gonzales appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.
They agreed with the lower court regarding the inaction of Castle Rock police with regards
to the Due Process Clause.
However, they DID say Gonzales had a “protected property interest in the enforcement of the
terms of her restraining order.”
In other words, there could be a good argument that you could sue the local government for
failing to actively enforce your protection of the property you own.
There was still hope for Gonzales, but Castle Rock appealed to the Supreme Court, which
heard oral arguments on March 21, 2005.
The big question was “can someone who has a restraining order sue a local government
if that local government doesn’t actively enforce the order?”
The Court said “no.”
On June 27, 2005, it announced it had sided with Castle Rock.
It was 7-2.
The Court said the Constitution didn’t protect the property interest of Gonzales in the enforcement
of the restraining order.
The police were not obligated to act.
They didn’t have to help her yo.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion, stating that in order for Gonzales
to have “property interest” with something as abstract as a restraining order, she would
have needed a “legitimate claim of entitlement.”
Because enforcement of her restraining order was NOT mandatory under Colorado state law,
that legitimate claim of entitlement simply was not there.
I guess Gonzales chose to live in the wrong state amirite?
Look, our hands are tied.
Mostly because of the horrific nature of the case, Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales remains
one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions in recent decades.
In 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned the decision.
Critics have argued that it basically says it’s ok for the police to ignore restraining
orders.
Decided on a technicality, it’s easy to understand why this decision is so unsettling
to so many when it began with police refusing to enforce a restraining order, and learning
that them actually enforcing that restraining order could have prevented the murder of three
children.
I’ll see you for the next Supreme Court case, jury!
Yeah this one was sad, and I immediately thought about it after the Uvalde police frankly failed
to do their jobs and save lives during the Robb Elementary School shooting a couple months
ago.
They will likely not lose their jobs.
I hope you’ve learned from this series that it’s really difficult to even sue the police.
Still, do you agree with the Court in the case?
Let me know down below.
Stay safe out there.