Rehnquist Absent From Bench
The U.S. International Boxing Federation's founder and former president on corruption charges. The court, without comment, let stand a lower ruling that upheld Robert W. Lee Sr.'s conviction on tax evasion, money laundering and racketeering.
She contends that police ignored multiple phone calls for help when Simon Gonzales took the daughters, ages 10, 9 and 7, from the front yard of her home one night in 1999.
Police in Castle Rock, Colorado, police found Simon Gonzales when he showed up at the police station and started a gunfight with officers. He was killed and the girls were found dead in his pickup truck.
Justices will decide if the mother can pursue a $30 million lawsuit against the city, on grounds that her constitutional due process rights were violated because the city did not enforce the restraining order.
The Supreme Court handled a similar case in 1989, and ruled that public officials may not be sued when their alleged gross negligence permits a child to be abused by a parent. The 6-3 opinion was authored by Rehnquist.
The court said then that the government does not have a constitutional duty to protect people, including abused children, who are not in custody.
Initially a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit against Castle Rock. But the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Ms. Gonzales on a 6-5 vote.
Eric Ziporin of Denver, one of the town's attorneys, had told justices in a filing that the decision requires judges to spell out what officers must do in such cases and "hold municipal governments to the predictably disastrous consequences of liability for violating whatever procedures are conceived."
The lawyer for the mother, Brian Reichel of Broomfield, Colorado, said that police ignored his client's calls for help over a five-hour span and could have prevented the deaths if they enforced the restraining order, as the law required.
Rehnquist, 80, revealed the cancer diagnosis a week ago, prompting speculation about a court vacancy for the first time in more than a decade. The winner of Tuesday's presidential election is expected to name one or more justices to a court that is deeply divided on issues like abortion, affirmative action and the death penalty.
Rehnquist, a conservative who has been on the court since 1972 and chief justice since 1986, has had other health problems including chronic back pain and a torn leg tendon that required surgery.
In his absence Monday, Justice John Paul Stevens, 84, presided over the court. He said Rehnquist could still vote in cases being argued this week, after reviewing transcripts and briefs.