Castle Rock v. Gonzales: Making the Court's Protection Real

On March 21, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Castle Rock, Colorado v. Gonzales, a case that will determine the accountability of local law enforcement for failing to enforce court orders that protect victims of abuse by a spouse or acquaintance.

The case stems from a lawsuit filed by Jessica Gonzales, who charged that police repeatedly failed to enforce a restraining order against her violent husband, who kidnapped and murdered their three young daughters in 1999.

The ACLU Women's Rights Project, which works regularly to protect the rights of domestic violence survivors, coordinated nine friend-of-the-court briefs on Jessica's behalf.

In 1999, a court granted Jessica Gonzales a protective order barring her estranged husband Simon from contact with her and her three daughters, ages seven, nine and ten. The court order also required the police to enforce its terms by arresting her husband if he violated the order.

Simon abducted the young girls a month after the court order, and Jessica immediately called the police. The police told Jessica there was nothing they could do, and said she should call back if the girls did not turn up. Jessica called the police six times that night, and eventually drove to the police station to plead for help in person. The police refused to take action and enforce the court order.

Later that night, Jessica's husband Simon drove up to the police station and opened fire with a gun purchased that day. He was killed in the gun battle that followed. Afterwards, police discovered the dead bodies of Jessica's three daughters in Simon's truck.

Jessica took a moment to speak with the ACLU about her story and her case.

ACLU: It has been five years since you first filed this lawsuit. This must have been a difficult process for you.

Jessica: It has been a long and difficult process. It's very hard to try and put your life back together when you're working on a legal case that stems from the most horrible thing that you - that any mother - could go through. And Castle Rock has certainly not made this easy for me. They have dragged their feet on this, taking every possible extension allowed, and waiting until the last minute before filing briefs.

ACLU: Why put yourself through it all?

Jessica: Because I want to make sure that no parent ever has to go through the pain that I went through. I want to make sure that police are ultimately accountable for doing their jobs. We rely on the courts and the police for protection against violence. A restraining order is the only legal alternative offered for protection against domestic violence. Supposedly, police function is to serve and protect. If the law's claimed purpose to protect is a fraud, we should know that. If the police will take no action to enforce an order of protection, then women need to know this before we go through the process and make our stalker or abuser even angrier.

ACLU: Do you believe that court orders of protection are a bad idea in a domestic violence situation?

Jessica: In my case, it definitely was. My daughters are dead. But I really believe that they could have been saved if the Castle Rock police actually bothered to enforce the court order. I called the police repeatedly that night. The police knew that I had a restraining order against Simon. It was their department that served him with that order. Orders of protection can only protect you if the police are trained on how to handle these calls and actually take measures to enforce the orders. That's why I filed this lawsuit.

< This is a bit pulled from an ACLU newsletter. In general, we support the ACLU as the only bastion of freedom left, particularly in this country, however, there are a few issues here with which we must take exception. First of all, they go too far with women's rights anyway. Like the reverse discrimination that has made it into our schools as the racial quota system. While diversity is a right and worthy goal of an educational institution, they get it at the expense of people who should have been getting the education not getting it, often to have it awarded to someone who is simply not worthy. In women's rights, they don't override Other People's rights, such as in abortion at the point when the fetus is obviously a person, or in child custody where the Mother's Wants are often taken over the Father's Needs.


In this particular case although they are specifically correct, they are in general wrong. Already, all a woman has to do to get a restraining order (and thereby fuck up a man's life) is say she wants one. Women almost automatically get custody in a divorce, and other injustices. Since there can be no way of knowing whether a restraining order is proper (the issue doesn't even get examined for up to months after the order is issued), there is no way to say that the police Should try to enforce it. As long as "women's rights" are supposed to take precidence over those of others, there is naught but injustice in them and they should be ignored and disallowed. Women have the same rights and protections granted to them against bodily harm, for freedom, etc, as everyone else! If a seperate type of need can be demonstrated for women (which is pretty obvious in cases like this) *AND* it can be balanced out with the needs and rights of others, THEN it is appropriate to have a seperate category legislated in. >