Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 24.0

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

1 

SOUTER, J., concurring 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

No. 04–278 
_________________ 

TOWN OF CASTLE ROCK, COLORADO, PETITIONER 
v. JESSICA GONZALES, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS NEXT 
BEST FRIEND OF HER DECEASED MINOR CHILDREN, 
REBECCA GONZALES, KATHERYN 
GONZALES, AND LESLIE 
GONZALES 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

[June 27, 2005] 

JUSTICE  SOUTER,  with  whom  JUSTICE  BREYER  joins,

concurring. 

I agree with the Court that Jessica Gonzales has shown 
no  violation  of  an  interest  protected  by  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment’s  Due  Process  Clause,  and  I  join  the  Court’s 
opinion.  The  Court  emphasizes  the  traditional  public 
focus  of  law  enforcement  as  reason  to  doubt  that  these 
particular  legal  requirements  to  provide  police  services, 
however unconditional their form, presuppose enforceable 
individual  rights  to  a  certain  level  of  police  protection. 
Ante, at 15œ16.  The Court also notes that the terms of the 
Colorado statute involved here recognize and preserve the 
traditional  discretion  afforded  law  enforcement  officers. 
Ante,  at  11–15,  and  n.  8.  Gonzales’s  claim  of  a  property 
right  thus  runs  up  against  police  discretion  in  the  face  of 
an  individual  demand to  enforce, and  discretion  to  ignore 
an individual instruction not to enforce (because, say, of a 
domestic  reconciliation);  no  one  would  argue  that  the
beneficiary of a Colorado order like the one here would be 
authorized to control a court’s contempt power or order the 
police  to  refrain  from  arresting.  These  considerations