In the case of Town of Castle Rock, Colorado v. Jessica Gonzales in 2005, the human rights of Jessica Gonzales were fundamentally violated. Gonzales obtained a restraining order from the Colorado trial court on June 4th, 1999 that granted her property interest for it to be enforced by the police. Yet, 18 days later, on June 22nd, 1999, the Castle Rock Police Department continuously dismissed her calls and restraining order, ultimately leading to the death of her estranged husband and their three young daughters. The police officers deprived her of that by ignoring her request and failing to respond properly to the restraining order at the time of the event. Afterward, state officials rejected her “without observing fair procedures,” leading to a violation of procedural and adequate due process. As Stevens and Ginsburg wrote, “At the very least, due process requires that the relevant state decisionmaker listen to the claimant and then apply the relevant criteria in reaching his decision.” The Supreme Court of the United States based the entire case on “whether an individual who has obtained a state-law restraining order has a constitutionally protected property interest in having the police enforce the restraining order when they have probable cause to believe it has been violated.” The scale of this tragedy is too large for the whole case to be debated and formed on simple terminology of what counts as property rights or to what extent or degree this right pertains to an individual. There are simply too many elements to the whole case and sequence of events that occurred for the Supreme Court to overlook and instead focus on the language of such state-law restraining order. Seeing as the court has failed to grant Gonzales a full and fair due process, I also respectfully dissent.
First, the fact that Gonzales still, to this day, does not know who shot and killed her three daughters in the truck is an immediate red flag of suspicion for the authorities. The Colorado authorities conducted no further investigation to investigate the fatal incident. In fact, the truck was immediately destroyed after the event rather than preserving or understanding the truth. These facts about the truck and event should have been brought up in court because the true murderer of these children could very well dictate the result of this case as it builds to the relevant context of the situation. Her restraining order includes how it is crucial in “[using] every reasonable means to enforce the restraining order… when you have information… that the restrained person has violated [this order].” If the murderer was officially identified as the father, Gonzales could further establish her case by stating that the authorities ignored details from her restraining order when her initial plea revealed the abusive state of the father. With prior evidence that her husband is abusive, the police would be required to take mandatory action in arresting him rather than reject her myriad times throughout that fatal evening. This would ultimately reinforce her claim for immediate police protection and assistance as included under her restraining order when proven that her husband was homicidal.
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The Colorado General Assembly passed legislation regarding domestic restraining orders in 1994 that clearly eliminates any room for police discretion as in Gonzales’ case. The omnibus legislation mandated the “enforcement of domestic restraining order upon probable cause of violation” and “directs that police officers shall, without undue delay, arrest a suspect upon cause to believe that a crime or offense of domestic violence has been committed.” This statute itself highlights the importance for police officers to intervene and arrest for domestic violence incidents when there is evident cause to believe. A 1984 Minneapolis domestic violence arrest study concluded that an “arrest had a significantly greater impact on reducing domestic violence recidivism” that eventually pushed multiple states to pass analogous statutes. Both this study and the addition of this mandate for multiple states push for the mandatory arrest of the domestic abuser under necessary circumstances. Yet, the Court still seemly neglected these precedent laws. Additionally, following the multiple domestic violence cases of Nearing v. Weaver, Matthews v. Pickett County, Campbell v. Campbell, and Donaldson v. Seattle, it seemed illogical and unjust for the majority of the Court to “repudiate this consistent line of persuasive authority from other States” and dispute these historical cases. There should be considerations of legal precedent of using the fair and just standards to determine the fate of similar cases as in these domestic violence cases relating to police interference for Castle Rock v. Gonzales. Rather, the Supreme Court overlooked such cases and failed to consider this tragedy in a consistent and holistic view.
“The Court fails to come to terms with the wave of domestic violence statutes that provides the crucial context for understanding Colorado’s law.” Yet, in the statute, the Court concedes that “mandatory-arrest statutes have been found in some States to be more mandatory than traditional mandatory statutes”; they fail to understand that “traditional” and “mandatory” are simply categorical names to understate making police enforcement “more mandatory,” when it was simply “mandatory.” The Supreme Court should have considered these precedent cases and the relevant context behind these mandates before coming to a conclusion for Gonzales. There is a reason that cases like these make it all the way up to the Supreme Court. It seemed rather thoughtless and indifferent for the Court to criticize the wording for “more mandatory” or “mandatory”. Simply put, the Court was looking for a technicality outlet. Stevens and Ginsburg highlighted these incidents to illustrate the severity and showcase what the law should dictate. To make matters worse, “the police were required to provide enforcement; they lacked the discretion to do nothing.” This is a clear violation of the statute’s term mandatory as it would obligate “not only the police to seek an arrest warrant, but also to execute it by making an arrest… by the time the police were informed of the husband’s whereabouts, an arrest was practical… and mandatory,” demonstrating a clear violation of the restraining order.
However, the Court argued the degree of probable cause could affect the obligation to provide enforcement. In this case, the estranged husband not only “violate the restraining order by coming within 100 yards,” but he also continued to abduct and hold his daughters. This clear act endangers the safety of children. As Jelena Gligorijevic stated about The Role of Parental Control and Consent, “a public place, anodyne activity,” such as playing in the yard in this case, “do not mean that there is no reason to protect privacy.” Right from the start, the interests and right to privacy of the children were endangered because the father intruded and brought potential harm upon the children when abducting them without parental consent. Article 14 and 6 of the Convention on the Rights of Children states that parental guardians can make decisions on behalf of the child, with the “best interests of the child [as] a primary consideration.” Upon noticing that her children were missing, Gonzalez suspected her ex-husband had taken them with no advance arrangements. It was natural for her to report this event to the police department to immediately get her children back in her safe protection as she was personally terrorized, mentally abused, and understood the danger and harmful nature of her ex-husband. Yet, the authority figures still repeatedly dismissed her and her children the necessary protection, confirming an infringement of rights.
Although it was never particularly mentioned, I do want to bring up the slight possibility of an unjust trial judgment based on gender or racial ethnicity. I can’t help but wonder what the outcome of this encounter with the police and court would be if the respondent was a white male with white children getting abducted. In the Interplay Between Cultural Rights and Women’s Rights, Kimberle Crenshaw challenges the belief of a single categorical axis for discrimination by explaining that “gender and racial discrimination mutually reinforce and intersect to shape structural and political oppression against women of color.” As a Latina and Native American Woman, Gonzales is not only a woman of color but also a minority group in the predominately white state of Colorado. If gender or racial ethnicity affected the police officers’ urgency to mediate this restraining order violation, then this is a clear violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Articles 2 and 3 of ICERD underscore the importance of “preventing, prohibiting, and eradicating all practices of [racial discrimination] … under their jurisdiction.” Any discrimination towards gender or racial ethnicity would thereby be beneficial for Gonzales’s case as the authorities violated her rights to equality.
Our nation has repeatedly shown favor towards majority groups and discrimination against minority groups. The Town of Castle Rock, Colorado v. Jessica Gonzales was concluded based on an unfair due process with mistreatment towards Gonzales, a domestic violence victim. Rather than looking at all the details of the tragedy, the Supreme Court fixated on the property rights terminology of the restraining order thereby neglecting the evidence, previous cases, statutes, children’s rights, women’s rights, and minority rights. It is time for the United States government to fully conduct an investigation into the systematic failures of the police department and the death of the three daughters. The federal and state governments must adopt new reforms to shift America in the right direction; to protect women and children from domestic violence.
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