840
Opinion of the Court
F. 2d 716, 720 (CA4 1991) (same), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 1095 (1992); and Checki v. Webb, 785 F. 2d 534, 538 (CA5 1986) (same). We now reverse.
II
Our prior cases have held the provision that "[n]o State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, § 1, to "guarante[e] more than fair process," Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 719 (1997), and to cover a substantive sphere as well, "barring certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them," Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 331 (1986); see also Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U. S. 113, 125 (1990) (noting that substantive due process violations are actionable under § 1983). The allegation here that Lewis was deprived of his right to life in violation of substantive due process amounts to such a claim, that under the circumstances described earlier, Smith's actions in causing Lewis's death were an abuse of executive power so clearly unjustified by any legitimate objective of law enforcement as to be barred by the Fourteenth Amendment. Cf. Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. 115, 126 (1992) (noting that the Due Process Clause was intended to prevent government officials " ' "from abusing [their] power, or employing it as an instrument of oppression" ' ") (quoting DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Servs., 489 U. S. 189, 196 (1989), in turn quoting Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U. S. 344, 348 (1986)).4
4 Respondents do not argue that they were denied due process of law by virtue of the fact that California's postdeprivation procedures and rules of immunity have effectively denied them an adequate opportunity to seek compensation for the state-occasioned deprivation of their son's life. We express no opinion here on the merits of such a claim, cf. Albright v. Oliver, 510 U. S. 266, 281-286 (1994) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527 (1981), or on the adequacy of California's postdeprivation compensation scheme.
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