Town of Castle Rock, Colorado v. Gonzales

Summary

The Supreme Court held that Jessica Gonzales lacked a constitutionally protected property interest in police enforcement of her domestic restraining order: although Colorado's statute directed officers to 'use every reasonable means to enforce' the order and to arrest or seek a warrant upon probable cause, the Court concluded that a deep-rooted tradition of police discretion coexists with apparently mandatory arrest statutes, that the asserted entitlement was indeterminate, and that Colorado therefore created no 'legitimate claim of entitlement' — leaving no property interest for the Due Process Clause to protect and making it unnecessary to assess the town's custom or the adequacy of process. As an alternative ground the Court expressed substantial doubt that an entitlement to have another person arrested could ever constitute traditional 'property,' because it lacks ascertainable monetary value and arises only incidentally from the government's law-enforcement function. The judgment of the Court of Appeals was reversed. Justice Souter, joined by Justice Breyer, concurred on the added ground that state-mandated process itself cannot be 'property'; Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Ginsburg, dissented, contending that Colorado's mandatory-arrest statute eliminated police discretion and created an enforceable entitlement and that the Court should have deferred to the Tenth Circuit or certified the state-law question to the Colorado Supreme Court.