In 1989 the United States Supreme Court addressed the question of
state liability for the severe beating of a four-year-old child, Joshua
DeShaney, at the hands of his father. ¹ So traumatic were Joshua's
injuries that they left him profoundly mentally retarded, requiring
full-time institutional care. Mr. Randy DeShaney had been the subject
of a Department of Social Services investigation into allegations of
child abuse. He was eventually convicted and imprisoned for the abuse
of his son.

Mrs. Melody DeShaney sued the county's Department of Social
Services, a state agency, for "extreme misconduct" in failing to remove
Joshua from his father's custody when evidence had accumulated
suggesting that his father was beating the child. Donald Sullivan,
Mrs. DeShaney's lawyer, argued that the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment guarantees all individuals a "constitutionally

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