Another Interesting Supreme Court Ruling
OttoDestruct
Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7790Members
Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7790Members
in Off-Topic
For the wifebeating rednecks in the house....
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that local governments have no constitutional duty to protect from private violence an individual who is shielded by a court's restraining order. Such individuals do not gain an enforceable interest in that protection, the Court declared in an opinion by Justice Scalia. The case was Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (04-278).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that local governments have no constitutional duty to protect from private violence an individual who is shielded by a court's restraining order. Such individuals do not gain an enforceable interest in that protection, the Court declared in an opinion by Justice Scalia. The case was Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (04-278).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
The link below gives a good description on the decision:
<a href='http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-11592-PHPSESSID-dec13c2ad09ae986bfc4b32ac253341b.html' target='_blank'>http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+...2ac253341b.html</a>
EDIT: Replaced "under" with "filing" to avoid potential confusion.
And I hate the following sentence.
Scalia did make the point, however, that if laws were created, they may be constitutional. The real problem with these restraining orders, is the mass of beauracracy and red tape required to document an individual's fear for their safety.
In a local case, a woman who left her husband (Abbott) with her two children from a previous marriage was living at the home of a previous husband. The woman had just filed for a restraining order due to some creepy phone calls and letters she was receiving from Abbott. Her report was documented but without much else to go on, Abbott was free to roam. He hid outside her garage one morning and as she climbed into her van to go to work, he stuck a hatchet in her forhead. Then, he went into the house intending to kill her children and former husband with a large knife. The other man fought him off, after taking multiple gashes, and Abbott fled toward his family's home in Indiana.
Abbott served something like 10 years in an Indiana prison for attempted murder of a previous girlfriend (he stabbed her multiple times). This information wasn't known to Michigan police at the time of the order filing.
With any luck, this ruling will cause police agencies to overhaul their processes for restraining orders and prevent cases like this.
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That the fact of pure scalibility. Restraining orders and ex parte orders (a temporary order when the defendent is not even notifed of it) are highly abused in the US.
Most orders are usually requested for stupid things as well (not trying to say that there are not serious cases.)
Usually we are trading into a civil matter here anyways. Issues between the courts, lawyers, and the people named in the order.
Thats is also not to say that if a court order is violated that the police wont take action. If a violation takes place or law enforcment have good reason to believe that a violation may take place appropriate measures will and do take place. Its not like police just sit back and do nothing.
btw, I think something there is about 1 million stalking or alleged stalking cases a year in the US. Can you imagin if all of these people got restraining orders and had to have some type of 24/ hour police protection for the lengthy duration of the order?
...
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->A 1995 study by the Massachusetts courts found that of the nearly 60,000 orders issued annually, fewer than half involve even an allegation of physical violence. Epstein says that she has seen ''affidavits which just said someone was in fear, or there had been an argument or yelling.'' In 1990, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a claim of ''fear'' was not enough to support a restraining order: there had to be ''reasonable'' fear of ''imminent serious physical harm.'' But often, judges who worry about being perceived as insensitive to women are satisfied with an affirmative reply to ''Are you afraid of bodily harm by the defendant?'' Indeed, former state Representative Barbara Gray, a sponsor of the Abuse Prevention Act, told me three years ago that ''judges grant the restraining orders without asking too many questions'' - though she saw nothing wrong with that.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In case there was any confusion, I wasn't saying in my translation that police would do nothing, but rather that there was no Constitutional right of the filer to expect special police protection.