In the case of Martinez et al. v. California et al., 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state officials could not be held liable for a parolee's actions under Section 1983 of Title 42 in United States Code, which allows individuals to sue government officials for civil rights violations. The parents of a fifteen-year-old girl who was murdered by Thomas Hosey, a paroled prisoner five months after his release from prison, sued several California parole board members and other state employees alleging that their daughter’s death resulted from negligent release of Hosey on parole and thus violated her right to life protected by the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause. The court concluded that even if negligence could be proven against the defendants in releasing Hosey on parole or supervising him thereafter, they did not "deprive" anyone else directly with any constitutional rights as required by Section 1983 because there was no immediate causal link between their actions and the murder.

In the dissenting opinion for Martinez et al. v. California et al., Justice White, joined by Justices Brennan and Marshall, argued that the state should be held liable for its decision to release a known dangerous offender who subsequently murdered a 15-year-old girl five months after his parole. The dissenters contended that this case was not about policy decisions protected under discretionary immunity but rather negligence in supervising paroled offenders which led directly to harm of an individual citizen. They believed there was enough foreseeability of potential harm from releasing such an offender into society without adequate supervision or control mechanisms in place, thus making it reasonable to hold the state accountable for their actions under Section 1983 - a federal statute allowing individuals to sue government officials over civil rights violations.