Morrigan68
03-22-2005, 12:14 AM
Justices consider enforcement of restraining orders
Mon Mar 21, 7:12 AM ET
By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
Jessica Gonzales vividly recalls the night of June 22, 1999, when she discovered that her three daughters were missing from their yard in Castle Rock, Colo.
"I contacted the police six times over an eight-hour period, by phone and in person," she says. She suspected her estranged husband, Simon, who had a history of erratic behavior and had been ordered by a judge to stay away from the family, had abducted the girls.
Gonzales and advocates from the American Civil Liberties Union and women's rights groups hope her experience will help persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to require police to enforce domestic-violence restraining orders. The court will hear the Gonzales case Monday.
Government groups such as the National League of Cities are closely following the case, too, concerned about limited resources and possible new liability for local police. With thousands of restraining orders issued annually by local courts, a ruling could have broad consequences for victims of domestic abuse and also for police seeking to retain their discretion in pursuing possible criminal activity.
The restraining orders typically stop an individual from going near another's home, stalking or engaging in abusive behavior. They are issued under state and local laws in myriad circumstances, usually to shield battered wives, girlfriends and children but also to protect the elderly and other vulnerable people.
Police didn't find Gonzales' daughters - Rebecca, 10, Katheryn, 8, and Leslie, 7 - that night. Early the next morning, about 3 a.m., Simon Gonzales drove his pickup truck to the Castle Rock police station and began shooting at the building. Officers fired back and killed Gonzales. The bodies of the three girls were found in his truck. The girls apparently had been shot to death by their father the night before.
"I relied on the police to protect me and my children," Gonzales says, explaining why she subsequently sued the town of Castle Rock, alleging that police violated her constitutional right to due process. "Police have to be required to enforce restraining orders or else these orders are meaningless," Gonzales says.
But Gonzales is making a novel argument. She won her case in a lower U.S. appeals court, but that decision - making the town of Castle Rock liable for how it handled her complaint that night - is at odds with rulings from other courts.
The Justice Department has joined Castle Rock in arguing that Gonzales has no claim. Acting U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement argues that if the high court forces officials to give new priority to restraining orders, it could divert resources from "more serious crimes or public emergencies."
Castle Rock officials also say that Gonzales has wrongly characterized the police as unresponsive to her demands to find her daughters. Assistant Town Manager Fritz Sprague says police tried several times to find Simon Gonzales. Sprague says that Jessica Gonzales did not lead police to believe that her husband had a weapon or that the children were in imminent danger.
The town is appealing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit that said Gonzales rightfully expected police to enforce the restraining order and that officers failed to adequately consider her pleas to arrest her husband for violating the terms of the order. The legal question focuses on the procedures the town used when Jessica Gonzales came to them, rather than any fundamental obligation to arrest Simon Gonzales.
The appeals court said the restraining order Gonzales obtained in May 1999 as part of divorce proceedings gave her a "property interest" that entitled her to some consideration and explanation before police decided not to arrest her husband. The restraining order required Simon Gonzales to stay away from his wife's home and to see the children only during prearranged visits. The order said he could be arrested if he violated its terms.
The town says the constitutional guarantee of due process does not require police to establish certain procedures before declining to arrest someone who violates a restraining order. "Every telephone call received by a police dispatcher that alleges a violation of a restraining order ... would have to be given the highest priority," the town argued in its legal filing with the court.
The town's appeal relies on a 1989 Supreme Court case that found a Wisconsin county had no obligation to protect a child from an abusive father even though it knew about past abuse. Joshua DeShaney, who was 4, was severely brain-damaged by his father's beating.
Gonzales' lawyer, Brian Reichel, counters that the DeShaney case does not apply because it involved "substantive" due process, the right itself, not a "procedural" right that the appeals court cited.
"This court must determine whether the state of Colorado created for Ms. Gonazales an entitlement that cannot be taken away from her without procedural due process," Reichel told the justices in his filing.
Mon Mar 21, 7:12 AM ET
By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY
Jessica Gonzales vividly recalls the night of June 22, 1999, when she discovered that her three daughters were missing from their yard in Castle Rock, Colo.
"I contacted the police six times over an eight-hour period, by phone and in person," she says. She suspected her estranged husband, Simon, who had a history of erratic behavior and had been ordered by a judge to stay away from the family, had abducted the girls.
Gonzales and advocates from the American Civil Liberties Union and women's rights groups hope her experience will help persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to require police to enforce domestic-violence restraining orders. The court will hear the Gonzales case Monday.
Government groups such as the National League of Cities are closely following the case, too, concerned about limited resources and possible new liability for local police. With thousands of restraining orders issued annually by local courts, a ruling could have broad consequences for victims of domestic abuse and also for police seeking to retain their discretion in pursuing possible criminal activity.
The restraining orders typically stop an individual from going near another's home, stalking or engaging in abusive behavior. They are issued under state and local laws in myriad circumstances, usually to shield battered wives, girlfriends and children but also to protect the elderly and other vulnerable people.
Police didn't find Gonzales' daughters - Rebecca, 10, Katheryn, 8, and Leslie, 7 - that night. Early the next morning, about 3 a.m., Simon Gonzales drove his pickup truck to the Castle Rock police station and began shooting at the building. Officers fired back and killed Gonzales. The bodies of the three girls were found in his truck. The girls apparently had been shot to death by their father the night before.
"I relied on the police to protect me and my children," Gonzales says, explaining why she subsequently sued the town of Castle Rock, alleging that police violated her constitutional right to due process. "Police have to be required to enforce restraining orders or else these orders are meaningless," Gonzales says.
But Gonzales is making a novel argument. She won her case in a lower U.S. appeals court, but that decision - making the town of Castle Rock liable for how it handled her complaint that night - is at odds with rulings from other courts.
The Justice Department has joined Castle Rock in arguing that Gonzales has no claim. Acting U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement argues that if the high court forces officials to give new priority to restraining orders, it could divert resources from "more serious crimes or public emergencies."
Castle Rock officials also say that Gonzales has wrongly characterized the police as unresponsive to her demands to find her daughters. Assistant Town Manager Fritz Sprague says police tried several times to find Simon Gonzales. Sprague says that Jessica Gonzales did not lead police to believe that her husband had a weapon or that the children were in imminent danger.
The town is appealing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit that said Gonzales rightfully expected police to enforce the restraining order and that officers failed to adequately consider her pleas to arrest her husband for violating the terms of the order. The legal question focuses on the procedures the town used when Jessica Gonzales came to them, rather than any fundamental obligation to arrest Simon Gonzales.
The appeals court said the restraining order Gonzales obtained in May 1999 as part of divorce proceedings gave her a "property interest" that entitled her to some consideration and explanation before police decided not to arrest her husband. The restraining order required Simon Gonzales to stay away from his wife's home and to see the children only during prearranged visits. The order said he could be arrested if he violated its terms.
The town says the constitutional guarantee of due process does not require police to establish certain procedures before declining to arrest someone who violates a restraining order. "Every telephone call received by a police dispatcher that alleges a violation of a restraining order ... would have to be given the highest priority," the town argued in its legal filing with the court.
The town's appeal relies on a 1989 Supreme Court case that found a Wisconsin county had no obligation to protect a child from an abusive father even though it knew about past abuse. Joshua DeShaney, who was 4, was severely brain-damaged by his father's beating.
Gonzales' lawyer, Brian Reichel, counters that the DeShaney case does not apply because it involved "substantive" due process, the right itself, not a "procedural" right that the appeals court cited.
"This court must determine whether the state of Colorado created for Ms. Gonazales an entitlement that cannot be taken away from her without procedural due process," Reichel told the justices in his filing.