Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 42

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

15 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

The  Court  similarly  errs  in  speculating  that  the  Colo-
rado  Legislature  may  have  mandated  police  enforcement 
of  restraining  orders  for  “various  legitimate  ends  other 
than the conferral of a benefit on a specific class of people,” 
ante, at 15; see also ibid. (noting that the “serving of pub-
lic  rather  than  private  ends  is  the  normal  course  of  the 
criminal  law”).    While  the  Court’s  concern  would  have 

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tlement to enforcement.  In any event, the Court’s speculations are off-
base.  First, this is not a case like Donaldson v. Seattle, 65 Wash. App. 
661, 831 P. 2d 1098 (1992), in which the restrained person violated the 
order  and  then  left  the  scene.    Here,  not  only  did  the  husband  violate 
the  restraining  order  by  coming  within  100  yards  of  the  family  home, 
but he continued to violate the order while his abduction of the daugh-
ters  persisted.    This  is  because  the  restraining  order  prohibited  him 
from “molest[ing] or disturb[ing] the peace” of the daughters.  See 366 
F. 3d, at 1143 (appendix to dissent of O’Brien, J.).  Because the “scene” 
of  the  violation  was  wherever  the  husband  was  currently  holding  the 
daughters,  this  case  does  not  implicate  the  question  of  an  officer’s 
duties  to  arrest  a  person  who  has  left  the  scene  and  is  no  longer  in 
violation of the restraining order.  Second, to the extent that arresting 
the  husband  was  initially  “impractical  under  the  circumstances” 
because  his  whereabouts  were  unknown,  the  Colorado  statute  (unlike 
some  other  States’  statutes)  expressly  addressed  that  situation—it 
required  the  police  to  seek  an  arrest  warrant.    Third,  the  Court  is 
wrong  to  suggest  that  this  case  falls  outside  the  core  situation  that 
these types of statutes were meant to address.  One of the well-known 
cases  that  contributed  to  the  passage  of  these  statutes  involved  facts 
similar to this case.  See Sorichetti v. New York City, 65 N. Y. 2d 461, 
467,  482  N.  E.  2d  70,  74  (1985)  (police  officers  at  police  station  essen-
tially  ignored  a  mother’s  pleas  for  enforcement  of  a  restraining  order 
against an estranged husband who made threats about their 6-year-old 
daughter; hours later, as the mother persisted in her pleas, the daugh-
ter  was  found  mutilated,  her  father  having  attacked  her  with  a  fork 
and a knife and attempted to saw off her leg); Note, 1996 U. Ill. L. Rev., 
at  539  (noting  Sorichetti  in  the  development  of  mandatory  arrest 
statutes);  see  also  Sack  1663  (citing  the  police’s  failure  to  respond  to 
domestic  violence  calls  as  an  impetus  behind  mandatory  arrest  stat-
utes).  It would be singularly odd to suppose that in passing its sweep-
ing omnibus domestic violence legislation, the Colorado Legislature did 
not mean to require enforcement in the case of an abduction of children 
in violation of a restraining order.