The Supreme Court docket stated Monday it’s going to evaluation whether or not the FBI ought to have immunity in a lawsuit introduced by a household whose Atlanta house was mistakenly raided by a SWAT staff.
In 2017, brokers executed a search warrant on the incorrect handle, believing it was the house of an alleged violent gang member. The warrant had as an alternative listed an handle three homes away.
Armed and wearing full tactical gear, the brokers breached the household’s house earlier than dawn and deployed a flashbang on the entrance. Hilliard Cliatt was handcuffed, his companion, Curtrina Martin, was held at gunpoint, and Martin’s seven-year-old son was additionally house, court docket paperwork present.
Brokers realized they’d the incorrect handle inside about 5 minutes. They instantly left and proceeded to arrest the alleged gang member down the road. FBI Particular Agent Lawrence Guerra, who led the staff, returned later within the day to apologize. He additionally promised to pay for damages and left a enterprise card.
The household sued the FBI below the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which permits non-public residents to sue for damages when federal staff commit wrongful acts. The Supreme Court docket in a quick order Monday agreed to take up the household’s attraction after decrease judges discovered the FBI had immunity from the lawsuit.
The excessive court docket usually solely takes up circumstances for the present time period by means of mid-January. However the justices set a barely faster-than-usual briefing schedule that allows the newest case to nonetheless be heard this time period, which might culminate in a choice by early summer season.
It follows a batch of circumstances on Friday the excessive court docket equally squeezed in for this time period, together with a push to create the primary public spiritual constitution college. The late, new circumstances come as a number of disputes already on the court docket’s docket might be shelved, as President Trump’s Justice Division considers coverage shifts that may moot them.
The Supreme Court docket’s order agrees to evaluation a ruling from the eleventh U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals that most of the Atlanta household’s claims fell below an exception to the FTCA, and the remaining claims had been barred below the Structure’s Supremacy Clause.
“It is undisputed that Agent Guerra and his staff dedicated an avoidable and harmful mistake by raiding the incorrect home. So there aren’t any messy reality disputes. And the Eleventh Circuit’s holdings on the questions introduced depart Petitioners-and the numerous equally located plaintiffs who will come after them-entirely remediless,” the household’s attorneys argued.
The Justice Division urged the excessive court docket to remain out of the case, insisting the decrease resolution was appropriate and posed no break up with different federal appeals courts.
The household is represented by The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit libertarian regulation agency that continuously brings circumstances to the excessive court docket.
Its petition was backed by a bipartisan group of seven members of Congress, who filed a friend-of-the-court temporary urging the justices to listen to the case: Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), and Reps. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), Nikema Williams (D-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Dan Bishop (R-N.C.).
“Today, victims of wrong-home raids by federal officers in Collinsville, Illinois, may sue under the FTCA, but victims of an identical raid in Collinsville, Georgia, could not,” their attorneys wrote.
“That asymmetry is untenable and contravenes Congress’s deliberate decision 50 years ago to accept responsibility and provide redress to those harmed by federal law-enforcement officers’ misdeeds. This Court should grant review to restore uniformity in this important area of federal law and ensure that Congress’s policy judgment is given effect,” they continued.
