County of Tulare, California, et al. v. Jose Murguia, Individually and on Behalf of the Estates of Mason and Maddox Murguia, et al.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment commands that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. This Court has held that “a State’s failure to protect an individual against private violence . . . does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause.” DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 197 (1989). Nonetheless, many (but not all) circuit courts have invented an exception to this rule—the so-called “state-created danger” doctrine. Under this exception, a State’s failure to protect an individual who is not in state custody against violence inflicted by a private party can violate substantive due process where state action creates or contributes to the risk of such violence. The circuits vary widely on the legal test for triggering the state-created danger doctrine, with the Ninth Circuit taking the most expansive, pro-plaintiff approach. The question presented is: Whether, and under what circumstances, a State’s failure to protect an individual who is not in state custody from violence by a private person constitutes a violation of the Due Process Clause.