Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 40.0

Cite as:  545 U. S. ____ (2005) 

13 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

mandatory-arrest statutes have been found in some States 
to  be  more  mandatory  than  traditional  mandatory-arrest 
statutes,”  ante,  at  13,  but  that  is  a  serious  understate-
ment.  The  difference  is  not  a  matter  of  degree,  but  of 
kind.  Before this wave of statutes, the legal rule was one 
of discretion; as the Court shows, the “traditional,” general 
mandatory arrest statutes have always been understood to 
be “mandatory” in name only, see ante, at 11.  The innova-
tion  of  the  domestic  violence  statutes  was  to  make  police 
enforcement,  not  “more  mandatory,”  but  simply  manda-
tory.  If,  as  the  Court  says,  the  existence  of  a  protected 
“entitlement” turns on whether “government officials may 
grant  or  deny  it  in  their  discretion,”  ante,  at  7,  the  new 
mandatory  statutes  undeniably  create  an  entitlement  to 
police enforcement of restraining orders. 

Perhaps  recognizing  this  point,  the  Court  glosses  over 
the  dispositive  question—whether  the  police  enjoyed 
discretion to deny enforcement—and focuses on a different 
question—which  “precise  means  of  enforcement,”  ante,  at 
14, were called for in this case.  But that question is a red 
herring.  The statute directs that, upon probable cause of 
a  violation,  “a  peace  officer  shall  arrest,  or,  if  an  arrest 
would  be  impractical  under  the  circumstances,  seek  a 
warrant  for  the  arrest  of  a  restrained  person.”    Colo.  Rev. 
Stat. §18–6–803.5(3)(b) (Lexis 1999).  Regardless of whether 
the  enforcement  called  for  in  this  case  was  arrest  or  the 
seeking of an arrest warrant (the answer to that question
probably  changed  over  the  course  of  the  night  as  the  re-
spondent  gave  the  police  more  information  about  the 
husband’s  whereabouts),  the  crucial  point  is  that,  under 
the  statute,  the  police  were  required  to  provide  enforce-
ment; they lacked the discretion to do nothing.12  The Court 

—————— 

12 Under the Court’s reading of the statute, a police officer with prob-
able cause is mandated to seek an arrest warrant if arrest is “impracti-
cal  under  the  circumstances,”  but  then  enjoys  unfettered  discretion  in