Emergency Protective Orders

Jessica Gonzales obtained a temporary restraining order against her estranged husband in May 1999 in connection with divorce proceedings in a Colorado state court. The order was served on the husband on June 4, 1999. The state trial court modified the terms of the restraining order on June 4, 1999, and made it permanent. 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. 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 with a semi-automatic handgun. Police shot back, killing him. Inside the cab of his pickup truck, they found the bodies of all three daughters, whom he had already murdered. 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. The district court dismissed the complaint. The Tenth Circuit en banc reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

A.Z. and B.Z. married in 1977. For the first two years they resided in Virginia, where both served in the armed forces. They underwent fertility testing after difficulties conceiving. The wife suffered an ectopic pregnancy that resulted in miscarriage and removal of her left fallopian tube. In 1980 the couple moved to Maryland for a year of additional fertility treatment that produced no pregnancy. The wife transferred to Massachusetts in 1988 while the husband remained in Maryland for schooling. He joined her in Massachusetts in 1991. After arriving in Massachusetts the wife began IVF treatments at a clinic. The couple first attempted a GIFT procedure on November 6, 1988, which produced another ectopic pregnancy and removal of the wife's remaining fallopian tube. They then pursued IVF from 1988 through 1991. Each time before egg retrieval the couple signed a clinic consent form. They executed seven such forms in total, the last in August 1991. On every form the wife wrote that the preembryos should be returned to her for implantation should the couple separate. The husband usually signed the forms while blank and before the wife completed the disposition language. The 1991 treatment produced twin daughters born in 1992, and two vials of preembryos were frozen for possible later use. In spring 1995, before the couple separated, the wife thawed one vial and had a preembryo implanted without informing the husband. He learned of the procedure from an insurance notice. Relations deteriorated, the wife obtained a protective order against the husband, the couple separated, and the husband filed for divorce. At the time of divorce one vial containing four frozen preembryos remained in storage. The husband moved for a permanent injunction prohibiting the wife from using the preembryos. The Probate and Family Court bifurcated the preembryos issue from the divorce action and held a hearing at which both parties were represented by counsel. The probate judge found the consent form unenforceable because of changed circumstances since 1991 and balanced the parties' interests, granting the husband a permanent injunction. The Supreme Judicial Court transferred the case on its own motion. On February 8, 2000, it issued an order affirming the Probate and Family Court judgment, with this opinion to follow.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a nonprofit membership corporation organized under the laws of New York. Its first Alabama affiliates were chartered in 1918, and in 1951 the Association opened a regional office in Alabama employing two supervisory persons and one clerical worker. The Association has never complied with Alabama's foreign corporation qualification statute. In 1956 the Attorney General of Alabama brought an equity suit in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County to enjoin the Association from further activities within the state and to oust it from Alabama. The bill alleged that the Association had opened a regional office, organized affiliates, recruited members, solicited contributions, given financial support and legal assistance to Negro students seeking admission to the state university, and supported a Negro boycott of Montgomery bus lines. On the day the complaint was filed the Circuit Court issued an ex parte order restraining the Association pendente lite from engaging in further activities within the state and from taking steps to qualify to do business. The State moved for production of a large number of records including bank statements, leases, deeds, and records containing the names and addresses of all Alabama members and agents. Over the Association's objections the Circuit Court ordered production of a substantial part of the requested records including the membership lists and postponed the hearing on the restraining order. The Association answered the bill, admitted its Alabama activities substantially as alleged, and offered to qualify if the bar from qualification were lifted, but it did not produce the membership lists. For its failure to comply the Association was adjudged in civil contempt and fined $10,000, with the fine subject to increase to $100,000 if compliance was not forthcoming within five days. After the five-day period the Association produced substantially all requested data except the membership lists, and the Circuit Court increased the fine to $100,000. The Alabama Supreme Court twice dismissed petitions for certiorari to review the final contempt judgment, the first time for insufficiency of the petition's allegations and the second time on procedural grounds. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari because of the importance of the constitutional questions presented.