Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 45.0

18 

CASTLE ROCK v. GONZALES 

STEVENS, J., dissenting 

the  Court’s  doubt  about  whether  Colorado’s  statute  cre-
ated  an  entitlement  in  a  protected  person  fail  to  take
seriously the purpose and nature of restraining orders, but 
it  fails  to  account  for  the  decisions  by  other  state  courts, 
see supra at 11–12, that recognize that such statutes and 
restraining orders create individual rights to police action. 

IV 

Given  that  Colorado  law  has  quite  clearly  eliminated 
the  police’s  discretion  to  deny  enforcement,  respondent  is 
correct that she had much more than a “unilateral expec-
tation”  that  the  restraining  order  would  be  enforced; 
rather,  she  had  a  “legitimate  claim  of  entitlement”  to 
enforcement.  Roth, 408 U. S., at 577.  Recognizing respon-
dent’s property interest in the enforcement of her restrain-
ing  order  is  fully  consistent  with  our  precedent.    This 
Court  has  “made  clear  that  the  property  interests  pro-
tected  by  procedural  due  process  extend  well  beyond  ac-
tual ownership of real estate, chattels, or money.”  Id., at 
571–572.  The  “types  of  interests  protected  as  ‘property’
are varied and, as often as not, intangible, ‘relating to the 
whole  domain  of  social  and  economic  fact.’ ”    Logan  v. 
Zimmerman  Brush  Co.,  455  U. S.  422,  430  (1982);  see 
also  Perry  v.  Sindermann,  408  U. S.  593,  601  (1972) 
(“ ‘[P]roperty’  interests  subject  to  procedural  due  process 
protection  are  not  limited  by  a  few  rigid,  technical  forms. 
Rather,  ‘property’  denotes  a  broad  range  of  interests  that
are secured by ‘existing rules or understandings’ ”).  Thus, 
our  cases  have  found  “property”  interests  in  a  number  of 
state-conferred  benefits  and  services,  including  welfare
benefits, Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970); disability 
benefits, Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319 (1976); public 

—————— 

ers)”); Sorichetti, 65 N. Y. 2d, at 469, 482 N. E. 2d, at 75 (“The [protec-
tive]  order  evinces  a  preincident  legislative  and  judicial  determination 
that  its  holder  should  be  accorded  a  reasonable  degree  of  protection 
from a particular individual”).