545 U.S. 748 (2005)
Jessica Gonzales obtained a temporary restraining order against her estranged husband in May 1999 in connection with divorce proceedings in a Colorado state court.1 The order was served on the husband on June 4, 1999.2
The state trial court modified the terms of the restraining order on June 4, 1999, and made it permanent.3 The modified order granted the husband limited visitation rights with their three daughters on alternate weekends, for two weeks during the summer, and upon reasonable notice for a mid-week dinner visit.4
On the evening of June 22, 1999, the husband took the three daughters, ages 10, 9, and 7, from outside the family home without any advance arrangements for visitation that night.5 Gonzales contacted the Castle Rock Police Department around 7:30 p.m.6 She showed officers a copy of the restraining order and requested its enforcement and the immediate return of the children.78 The officers stated there was nothing they could do and advised her to call back if the children did not return by 10:00 p.m.9
Gonzales made additional calls to the police throughout the night.10 She called at 8:30 p.m. after speaking with her husband who was at an amusement park in Denver.11 She called at 10:10 p.m., at midnight, and at 12:10 a.m. when she went to his apartment.12 Each time she was told to wait or that no immediate action would be taken.13 When she filed an incident report at the police station around 12:50 a.m., the officer took the report but made no effort to locate the children before going to dinner.14
At approximately 3:20 a.m. on June 23, 1999, the husband arrived at the police station and opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun.15 Police shot back, killing him.16 Inside the cab of his pickup truck, they found the bodies of all three daughters, whom he had already murdered.17
Gonzales subsequently filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Town of Castle Rock.18 She alleged that the police department's policy or custom of failing to respond properly to complaints of restraining order violations deprived her of due process.19 The district court dismissed the complaint.20 The Tenth Circuit en banc reversed.21 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.22
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?23
The Due Process Clause’s procedural component does not protect everything that might be described as a government benefit.24 To have a property interest in a benefit, a person must have a legitimate claim of entitlement to it.25 Such entitlements are created by existing rules or understandings stemming from an independent source such as state law.26 A benefit is not a protected entitlement if officials have discretion to grant or deny it.27
No. The established facts show that Jessica Gonzales obtained a temporary restraining order in May 1999 in connection with divorce proceedings in a Colorado state court.28 The order was served on her estranged husband on June 4, 1999.29 It was later modified to become permanent.30 The modification granted him limited visitation rights with their three daughters on alternate weekends and mid-week dinner visits upon reasonable notice.31 It prohibited him from molesting or disturbing the peace of Gonzales or the children.32 It required him to stay at least 100 yards from the family home.33
On the evening of June 22, 1999, the husband took the three daughters, ages 10, 9, and 7, from outside the family home without any advance arrangements for visitation that night. Gonzales contacted the Castle Rock Police Department around 7:30 p.m. She showed officers a copy of the restraining order and requested its enforcement and the immediate return of the children. The officers stated there was nothing they could do and advised her to call back if the children did not return by 10:00 p.m. Gonzales made additional calls to the police throughout the night. She called at 8:30 p.m. after speaking with her husband who was at an amusement park in Denver. She called at 10:10 p.m., at midnight, and at 12:10 a.m. when she went to his apartment. Each time she was told to wait or that no immediate action would be taken. When she filed an incident report at the police station around 12:50 a.m., the officer took the report but made no effort to locate the children before going to dinner.
At approximately 3:20 a.m. on June 23, 1999, the husband arrived at the police station and opened fire.34 Police killed him.35 They discovered the bodies of all three daughters in his truck, whom he had murdered.36 Gonzales subsequently filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Town of Castle Rock. She alleged that the police department's policy or custom of failing to respond properly to complaints of restraining order violations deprived her of due process.
Colorado law has not created a personal entitlement to enforcement of restraining orders.37 A well-established tradition of police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.38 The statute's direction to use every reasonable means to enforce a restraining order or to arrest or seek a warrant did not eliminate officer discretion.39 This was particularly true when the suspected violator was not present and his whereabouts were unknown.40 The officers in this case exercised that discretion by advising Gonzales to wait and by declining immediate enforcement actions.41 Because the statute did not create a mandatory duty enforceable by Gonzales, she lacked a legitimate claim of entitlement under state law.42 The indirect nature of any benefit from enforcement further confirms it does not qualify as property under the Due Process Clause.43
Respondent did not have a property interest in police enforcement of the restraining order for purposes of the Due Process Clause.44
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Breyer
Justice Souter concurred in the judgment.45 He emphasized that Gonzales's claim runs up against traditional police discretion in the face of an individual demand to enforce and discretion to ignore an individual instruction not to enforce.46 The classic predicate for federal due process protection of interests under state law is therefore missing.47
Souter further explained that the state-law benefit for which Gonzales claims federal procedural protection is itself a variety of procedural regulation, a set of rules to be followed by officers exercising the state's executive power.48 This argument is at odds with the rule that process is not an end in itself and its constitutional purpose is to protect a substantive interest to which the individual has a legitimate claim of entitlement.49 State rules of executive procedure, however important, may be nothing more than rules of executive procedure and do not create a property right merely by ordaining beneficial procedure unconnected to some articulable substantive guarantee.50
Joined by Justice Ginsburg
Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justice Ginsburg.51 He argued that the central question is whether Colorado law gave respondent a right to police enforcement of the restraining order comparable to the right she would have possessed to any other service the government or a private firm might have undertaken to provide.52 The Colorado statute used the word shall repeatedly.53
It eliminated the police's discretion by specifying that they shall arrest if there is probable cause to believe that the order has been violated.54 The legislative history confirms that the statute was intended to eliminate police discretion in the domestic violence context.55 Stevens maintained that the statute conferred a benefit on a specific class of people, namely recipients of domestic restraining orders.56
Respondent had a legitimate claim of entitlement to enforcement.57 He criticized the majority for failing to defer to the Tenth Circuit's interpretation of Colorado law or to certify the state-law question to the Colorado Supreme Court.58