Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 46

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

19 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

education,  Goss  v.  Lopez,  419  U. S.  565  (1975);  utility  ser-
vices, Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U. S. 
1 (1978); government employment, Cleveland Bd. of Ed. v. 
Loudermill, 470 U. S. 532 (1985); as well as in other enti-
tlements  that  defy  easy  categorization,  see,  e.g.,  Bell  v. 
Burson,  402  U. S.  535  (1971)  (due  process  requires  fair 
procedures before a driver’s license may be revoked pend-
ing  the  adjudication  of  an  accident  claim);  Logan,  455 
U. S., at 431 (due process prohibits the arbitrary denial of 
a  person’s  interest  in  adjudicating  a  claim  before  a  state 
commission). 

Police  enforcement  of  a  restraining  order  is  a  govern-
ment service that is no less concrete and no less valuable 
than other government services, such as education.18  The 
relative novelty of recognizing this type of property inter-
est  is  explained  by  the  relative  novelty  of  the  domestic
violence statutes creating a mandatory arrest duty; before 
this  innovation,  the  unfettered  discretion  that  character-
ized  police  enforcement  defeated  any  citizen’s  “legitimate 
claim of entitlement” to this service.  Novel or not, respon-
dent’s  claim  finds  strong  support  in  the  principles  that 
underlie  our  due  process  jurisprudence.    In  this  case, 
Colorado law guaranteed the provision of a certain service, 
in  certain  defined  circumstances,  to  a  certain  class  of 

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18 The  Court  mistakenly  relies  on  O’Bannon  v.  Town  Court  Nursing 
Center,  447  U. S.  773  (1980),  in  explaining  why  it  is  “by  no  means 
clear  that  an  individual  entitlement  to  enforcement  of  a  restraining 
order  could  constitute  a  ‘property’  interest  for  purposes  of  the  Due 
Process  Clause.”  Ante,  at  17.  In  O’Bannon,  the  question  was  essen-
tially  whether  certain  regulations  provided  nursing-home  residents 
with an entitlement to continued residence in the home of their choice. 
447 U. S., at 785.  The Court concluded that the regulations created no 
such entitlement, but there was no suggestion that Congress could not 
create one if it wanted to.  In other words, O’Bannon did not address a 
situation  in  which  the  underlying  law  created  an  entitlement,  but  the 
Court  nevertheless  refused  to  treat  that  entitlement  as  a  property 
interest within the meaning of the Due Process Clause.