USSC rules police not required to enforce restraining orders-Women Betraye [View All]

[papau]

Time to forget restraining orders and to go back to being a "more patient wife"? Or a website where women could post the names of unresponsive police officers to embarrass and perhaps force a change in attitude? Or perhaps just shoot the husband and take your chances in court?


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-buel4jul04,0,2335211.story?track=tottext

COMMENTARY
Battered Women Betrayed
By Sarah M. Buel
Sarah Buel is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin.

July 4, 2005

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that police are not required to enforce restraining orders, even if state law mandates that they do so.<snip>

For one thing, the ruling threatens to sabotage many hard-won gains. Principal among these was the advent, in the late 1970s, of civil restraining orders, warning batterers to cease their abuse and triggering police investigation and arrest for violations. In response to widespread police under-enforcement of these orders in the early days, 19 states — including Colorado, where this case originated — passed laws in the 1980s and 1990s mandating that police arrest batterers if restraining orders were violated. <snip>

But in fact, the plaintiff in this case, Jessica Gonzales, did exactly what she was supposed to. As soon as her estranged husband absconded with their three daughters — in violation of a court's restraining order — she called the Castle Rock, Colo., police. She called six times over an eight-hour period — including numerous calls after she had reached her husband on his cellphone and confirmed that he had the children with him.

She repeatedly begged the police to enforce the restraining order and retrieve her daughters, citing the father's extremely violent and unstable history — to no avail. Over and over again, she was told to call back later. At 3:20 a.m., the father appeared at the police station, where he opened fire on officers and was shot and killed. The dead bodies of the three girls, ages 7, 9 and 10, were found in the back of his pickup.

What's stunning about the Supreme Court's decision is its reliance on Orwellian doublespeak. Even though Colorado specifically mandates that a police officer "shall use every reasonable means to enforce" a restraining order, the court concluded that the legislative intent of the Colorado law was actually to permit officer discretion.<snip>