Groups Back Restraining Orders Amid Ruling

Associated Press | June 28, 2005
By JON SARCHE

DENVER -- Victims' advocates scrambled to reassure the public that restraining orders are still effective for preventing domestic violence, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that police cannot be sued over the way they enforce them.

The 7-2 ruling Monday ended a lawsuit by a Colorado woman who claimed Castle Rock police did not do enough to prevent her estranged husband from killing their three young daughters. The ruling said Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of the court order against her husband.

"The second tragedy in this case could very well be that victims of domestic violence will read this opinion to mean that protection orders are not worth the paper they're printed on, and that impression would be false," said Richard Smith, a Washington lawyer who filed a brief in support of Gonzales.

Trish Thibodo, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said police still have a responsibility to enforce restraining orders and to take them seriously.

"Nothing's changed," she said.

City governments feared that a ruling in Gonzales' favor could open them to a flood of lawsuits. Judges in Colorado issued more than 14,000 restraining orders in fiscal 2004.

"The potential for liability was just completely out of this world," said Brad Bailey, an assistant city attorney in Littleton who filed a brief in support of the Castle Rock police department.

Gonzales' attorney, Brian Reichel, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

On ABC's "Good Morning America," Gonzales said now that the Supreme Court has ruled, she is moving on.

"I'm going to continue my advocacy for other victims," she said. "I believe that there is a lot to be done, and this is a new beginning for me. And continuing to try to find some resolution for why my three children were murdered."

Gonzales sued the Castle Rock police department, claiming officers ignored her pleas to find her husband after he took the three girls, ages 10, 9 and 7, from the front yard of her home in June 1999 in violation of a restraining order. Hours later, Simon Gonzales died in a gunfight with officers outside a police station. The bodies of the girls were in his truck.

Gonzales argued that she was entitled to sue based on her rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and under a Colorado law that says officers must use "every reasonable means" to enforce a restraining order.

She contended that her restraining order should be considered property under the 14th Amendment and that it was taken from her without due process when police failed to enforce it.

A federal judge in Denver dismissed her lawsuit, but the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived it, saying the restraining order was a government benefit that should be treated like any other property.

But Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the high court's majority, said Colorado's law does not entitle people who receive protective orders to police enforcement.

Smith, Gonzales' attorney, called the ruling "an open invitation to states to look at their statutes and enhance them and to provide the kind of protections that victims need."

He said lawmakers should ensure that police departments can be sued in state courts for failure to enforce protective orders. Under current state law, governments in Colorado and other states are immune from such lawsuits, forcing Gonzales to turn to the federal courts.

"The ultimate conclusion in this case is that states need to stand up and become accountable in protecting the innocent victims of domestic violence," Smith said.

Castle Rock officials contend they tried to help Gonzales. Police twice went to the estranged husband's apartment, kept an eye out for his truck and called his cellular phone and home phone.

Gonzales reached him on his cell phone, and he told her that he had taken the girls to an amusement park in nearby Denver. Gonzales maintains that police should have gone to the amusement park or contacted Denver police.

"We all still feel really bad about this whole situation, but in response to the allegations we were unresponsive and so on, these were all totally not true," said Police Chief Tony Lane, who was chief at the time of the slayings.

"The deaths of these girls, while tragic, I think the learning experience we gained from this will help us deal better with these situations in the future," he said.

<< HOME