Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 2.0

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CASTLE ROCK v. GONZALES 

Syllabus 

(b) A  benefit  is  not  a  protected  entitlement  if  officials  have  discre-
tion  to  grant  or  deny  it.  See,  e.g.,  Kentucky  Dept.  of  Corrections  v. 
Thompson, 490 U. S. 454, 462–463.  It is inappropriate here to defer 
to the Tenth Circuit’s determination that Colorado law gave respon-
dent  a  right  to  police  enforcement  of  the  restraining  order.    This 
Court therefore proceeds to its own analysis.  Pp. 7–9.

(c) Colorado law has not created a personal entitlement to enforce-
ment  of  restraining  orders.    It  does  not  appear  that  state  law  truly
made  such  enforcement  mandatory.  A  well-established  tradition  of 
police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest 
statutes.    Cf.  Chicago  v.  Morales,  527  U. S.  41,  47,  n. 2,  62,  n. 32. 
Against that backdrop, a true mandate of police action would require 
some stronger indication than the Colorado statute’s direction to “use 
every reasonable means to enforce a restraining order” or even to “ar-
rest . . . or . . . seek a warrant.”  A Colorado officer would likely have 
some discretion to determine that—despite probable cause to believe 
a  restraining  order  has  been  violated—the  violation’s  circumstances 
or competing duties counsel decisively against enforcement in a par-
ticular instance.  The practical necessity for discretion is particularly 
apparent  in  a  case  such  as  this,  where  the  suspected  violator  is  not 
actually present and his whereabouts are unknown.  In such circum-
stances,  the  statute  does  not  appear  to  require  officers  to  arrest  but 
only  to  seek  a  warrant.    That,  however,  would  be  an  entitlement  to 
nothing  but  procedure,  which  cannot  be  the  basis  for  a  property  in-
terest.  Pp. 9–15.

(d) Even if the statute could be said to make enforcement “manda-
tory,” that would not necessarily mean  that respondent has  an enti-
tlement to enforcement.  Her alleged interest stems not from common 
law or contract, but only from a State’s statutory scheme.  If she was 
given a statutory entitlement, the Court would expect to see some in-
dication  of  that  in  the  statute  itself.    Although  the  statute  spoke  of 
“protected person[s]” such as respondent, it did so in connection with 
matters  other  than  a  right  to  enforcement.    Most  importantly,  it 
spoke  directly  to  the  protected  person’s  power  to  “initiate”  contempt 
proceedings if the order was issued in a civil action, which contrasts 
tellingly with its conferral of a power merely to “request” initiation of 
criminal contempt proceedings—and even more dramatically with its 
complete  silence  about  any  power  to  “request”  (much  less  demand) 
that an arrest be made.  Pp. 15–17. 

(e) Even  were  the  Court  to  think  otherwise  about  Colorado’s  crea-
tion of an entitlement, it is not clear that an individual entitlement to 
enforcement  of  a  restraining  order  could  constitute  a  “property”  in-
terest  for  due  process  purposes.    Such  a  right  would  have  no  ascer-
tainable monetary value and would arise incidentally, not out of some