Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 26.0

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

3 

SOUTER, J., concurring 

unfair  deprivation  by  state  officials  of  substantive  state-
law  property  rights  or  entitlements;  the  federal  process 
protects  the property  created  by state law.   But  Gonzales 
claims  a  property  interest  in  a  state-mandated  process  in 
and of itself.  This argument is at odds with the rule that 
“[p]rocess is not an end in itself.  Its constitutional purpose
is to protect a substantive interest to which the individual 
has  a  legitimate  claim  of  entitlement.”  Olim  v.  Wakine-
kona,  461  U. S.  238,  250  (1983);  see  also  Doe  by  Fein  v. 
District  of  Columbia,  93  F. 3d  861,  868  (CADC  1996)  (per 
curiam); Doe by Nelson v. Milwaukee County, 903 F. 2d 499, 
502–503 (CA7 1990).  In putting to rest the notion that the 
scope of an otherwise discernible property interest could be 
limited by related state-law procedures, this Court observed 
that  “[t]he  categories  of  substance  and  procedure  are  dis-
tinct. . . .  ‘Property’  cannot  be  defined  by  the  procedures 
provided for its deprivation.”  Cleveland Bd. of Ed. v. Loud-
ermill,  470  U. S.  532,  541  (1985).    Just  as  a  State  cannot 
diminish a property right, once conferred, by attaching less 
than  generous  procedure  to  its  deprivation,  ibid.,  neither 
does  a  State  create  a  property  right  merely  by  ordaining 
beneficial  procedure  unconnected  to  some  articulable  sub-
stantive  guarantee.  This  is  not  to  say  that  state  rules  of 
executive procedure may not provide significant reasons to 
infer  an  articulable  property  right  meant  to  be  protected; 
but  it  is  to  say  that  we  have  not  identified  property  with 
procedure  as  such.    State  rules  of  executive  procedure, 
however  important,  may  be  nothing  more  than  rules  of 
executive procedure.

Thus,  in  every  instance  of  property  recognized  by  this 
Court  as  calling  for  federal  procedural  protection,  the
property  has  been  distinguishable  from  the  procedural 
obligations  imposed  on  state  officials  to  protect  it. 
Whether welfare benefits, Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 
(1970),  attendance  at  public  schools,  Goss  v.  Lopez,  419 
U. S.  565  (1975),  utility  services,  Memphis  Light,  Gas  &