The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL), an organization dedicated to the advancement of rights of women and women lawyers, filed a brief in the Supreme Court of the United States yesterday, February 10, 2005, supporting the position of Respondent Jessica Gonzales as amicus curiae in City of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, No. 04-278 (Sup. Ct.).

NAWL has a strong interest in protecting the legal rights of women and girls and strongly supports the rights of women to seek recourse in the courts for protection from domestic violence and abuse. Castle Rock addresses the question whether cities and police who fail to enforce mandatory restraining orders can be held liable by victims of domestic violence under federal civil rights law. In recent years, states such as Colorado have begun to change their longstanding practice of ignoring the ravages of domestic abuse by enacting laws making police enforcement of restraining orders mandatory. But these laws alone cannot assure enforcement, as this case tragically illustrates. When Ms. Gonzales' husband kidnapped their three children, in violation of a valid restraining order, her repeated entreaties that the Castle Rock police enforce that order were ignored, allowing Mr. Gonzales to kill the three children. Effective legal means of enforcing mandatory restraining order statutes are critical to their success.

NAWL, with other amici, argues in Castle Rock that state tort remedies are inadequate to provide Ms. Gonzales the process she is due under Colorado's mandatory restraining order statute. That law entitles recipients of restraining orders to at least a minimal hearing to determine whether there exists probable cause that the order has been violated. Deprivations of this constitutional right of due process require that victims be given an adequate remedy via federal civil rights law. NAWL, with the Petitioner and other amici, asks the Supreme Court to affirm the decision below and support the right of women to adequate enforcement of restraining orders. Lorelie S. Masters, Lindsay C. Harrison, and David Fagundes in the Washington, D.C., office of Jenner & Block, LLP, authored the brief on behalf of NAWL.