## Facts

- Jessica Lenahan obtained a permanent protection order against her ex-husband, granting her sole physical custody and limiting his visitation to supervised and pre-arranged contact.
- Colorado law directed police to use reasonable means to enforce protection orders and, upon probable cause of a violation, to arrest.
- On June 22, 1999, the ex-husband took the couple’s three daughters from Lenahan’s yard in alleged violation of the order.
- Lenahan repeatedly contacted and visited the local police department over several hours, reported the violation, and provided information about the children’s likely location.
- Police did not take effective measures during the night to locate the children, enforce the order, or arrest the ex-husband.
- Early on June 23, 1999, the ex-husband arrived at the police station, opened fire, and was killed by police; the children were found dead in his vehicle.
- Lenahan alleged that authorities failed to conduct a serious, impartial investigation clarifying the cause, time, and place of the children’s deaths and failed to examine possible official responsibility and systemic deficiencies.
- After unsuccessful domestic litigation (including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling rejecting a federal due process entitlement to enforcement of the order), Lenahan petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
- Because the United States is not a party to the American Convention on Human Rights, the IACHR evaluated the claims under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man.

## Issues

1. Whether state authorities violated rights to life, security, equality, and special protection by failing to act with due diligence to prevent foreseeable harm and to respond effectively to domestic violence, including enforcement of a protection order.
2. Whether inadequate investigation and lack of effective recourse after the deaths violated rights to judicial protection and equality before the law.
3. Whether the omissions reflected discriminatory practices in the treatment of domestic violence against women and children under the American Declaration.

## Decision

- The IACHR found the United States internationally responsible for violating rights protected by the American Declaration arising from failures to prevent and respond to domestic violence.
- The Commission concluded that authorities did not act with due diligence to enforce the protection order or to respond effectively to Lenahan’s repeated pleas despite notice of a real risk to identified victims.
- The Commission found the post-incident response deficient, including an inadequate investigation into the children’s deaths and into systemic failures connected to protection-order enforcement.
- The Commission determined that ineffective protection and deficient remedies in a domestic-violence context constituted discrimination and violated rights to equality and special protection of children, along with related protections.
- The Commission recommended individual measures (serious, impartial, exhaustive investigations and accountability) and structural reforms to improve enforcement of protection orders and institutional responses to domestic violence.

## Legal Principles

- A state may incur international responsibility for private violence where it knew or should have known of a real and immediate risk to identified persons and failed to take reasonable measures to prevent the harm.
- Due diligence in domestic-violence cases requires effective, timely measures to prevent, investigate, and respond to reported threats, including meaningful enforcement of protection orders when risk is apparent.
- Persistent failures to protect women and children from domestic violence, and to provide effective remedies, can constitute discrimination under equality guarantees.
- Judicial protection obligations include conducting serious, impartial investigations capable of clarifying material facts and examining possible official responsibility, and providing meaningful avenues of recourse.
- Under the American Declaration, member states of the Organization of American States have enforceable duties to respect and ensure protected rights even when domestic constitutional doctrine does not recognize a comparable entitlement.

## Conclusion

The Commission held that the United States failed to exercise due diligence to protect Lenahan and her daughters from foreseeable domestic violence, failed to adequately investigate the children’s deaths and related systemic shortcomings, and thereby violated rights to equality, life and security, special protection for children, and judicial protection under the American Declaration, while directing both case-specific investigation and broader institutional reforms.


Lenahan (Gonzales) v. United States, Case 12.626, Inter-Am. Comm’n H.R. 80/11 (2011)