The Town Of Castle Rock V. Jessica Gonzales And Jessica Lenahan

The cases of The Town of Castle Rock v. Jessica Gonzales and Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) v. United States of America were the result of a tragedy that could have easily been prevented. These cases bring into question: when is discretion appropriate, what is property, what rights are we guaranteed, and what can we do about it? Simon and Jessica Gonzales were married in 1990. Ms. Gonzales alleges that her husband became abusive toward her and her three daughters, Leslie, Katheryn and Rebecca, around 1996. In May of 1999, Mr. Gonzales attempted to commit suicide, and shortly after Ms. Gonzales filed for divorce and was granted sole custody. She was able to obtain a restraining order against her husband that would protect her and her daughters.

Jessica Gonzales, Jessica Gonzales claimed that the town of Castle Rock and its officers “knowingly failed to perform their duties to [respondent] and the three children to protect them from, arrest or restrain Simon Gonzales, and such failure constituted a denial of the due process rights of [respondent] and the three children” (Clement, Keisler, Elwood, Singer, & Scher, 11). In an interview for 60 Minutes, Castle Rock Police Chief Tony Lane explained that domestic disputes are often difficult to sort out. “What safer place can children be than with one of the parents, the mother or the father? And we had no indication from past records that he was ever violent with these children, or even his wife, physically. Nobody dropped the ball,” Lane said. “You give me a crystal ball, and you tell me that this was gonna happen ahead of time, and we would have certainly taken action on it. We certainly had no indication that Simon was going to kill these kids” (Leung, 2005). Lane stated that his officers acted appropriately on the information that was available to them at the time. They claim they did not know about previous incidents, such as Mr. Gonzales being ticketed for road rage or trespassing in their police department. Since then, the computer systems have been upgraded so the information can be compiled and is more readily available (Leung,