WASHINGTON (AP) — An Atlanta family whose home was wrongly raided by the FBI will get a new day in court, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday.
The decision revives a lawsuit filed after a predawn 2017 raid in which armed members of an FBI SWAT team smashed in a front door and set off a flashbang grenade, pointing guns at a couple and terrifying a 7-year-old boy before realizing they were in the wrong house.
The FBI team quickly apologized and left for the right place, with the team leader later saying that his personal GPS device had led him to the wrong address. But Trina Martin and her then-boyfriend, Toi Cliatt, and her son were left with lasting trauma and a damaged home.
Martin and Cliatt filed a lawsuit against the federal government accusing the agents of assault and battery, false arrest and other violations. While the government is typically immune from lawsuits, they are allowed in some cases. Congress changed the law specifically to allow suits over wrong-house raids after a pair of them made headlines in the 1970s, their lawyers said.
But lower courts tossed out the case.
Public interest groups from across the political spectrum urged the justices to overturn the ruling from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying it severely narrows the legal path for people to file law enforcement accountability cases against the federal government.
The high court ruled narrowly, reversing the appeals court on one of the issues in the case. The justices said it was wrong to toss out the case based on the Supremacy Clause, which says federal laws supersede state laws when the two conflict.
The federal law at the center of this case actually refers back to state law, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote. While the government is typically immune from lawsuits, it allows those claims in some situations that would create liability under state law.
“Congress has entered the field and expressly bound the federal government to accept liability under state tort law on the same terms as a ‘private individual,’” Gorsuch wrote.
That means there’s no need to involve the Supremacy Clause, and the case should move forward, the justices said. The ruling sends the case back to the 11th Circuit, which will continue to weigh other questions raised by the case.
an FBI SWAT team smashed in a front door and set off a flashbang grenade, pointing guns at a couple and terrifying a 7-year-old boy before realizing they were in the wrong house.
The FBI team quickly apologized and left for the right place, with the team leader later saying that his personal GPS device had led him to the wrong address
Imagine breaching someones house, flashbanging them, and pointing guns at them and then just being like “ope, sorry” as if you are a pizza driver knocking the wrong door
I’m actually surprised they apologized. I’d have expected them to threaten the family and charge them for their time.
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Federal Bureau of Investigation - intelligence is not in the name.
This is their usual course of action, yes.
How about instead: you actually formally apologize, pay for all damages, pay a small fine that will be a fraction of what they’re going to pay now, but enough to get these people therapy if needed, a nice big luxury vacation to put this behind them…
I mean, mistakes will be made everywhere, everyone fucks up and some mistakes, like these, have shitty consequences.
Own up to your mistake, handle it well and you’d be respected.
Instead we have this shitty bickering in courts which eventually after years of struggling will end with the government having to pay up anyways but now ten times more and you lose respect
(For those furiously typing that acab and cops don’t deserve respect: that’s the entire point of this post. police officers should get respect because they deserve respect because they’d behave respectful. If police officers would fucking simply behave respectfully and do their job of protecting and serving, nobody in their right mind would say acab.
The US is the shitty place it is because of the wrong policies everywhere since forever. Change policies of policing and you’ll actually start to resolve these problems and you’ll actually start building trust from the general audience and get respect in return.
This was 2017, it was a kinder, gentler time.
When all you’ve got is a hammer you’ve got to break some eggs or they’ll spoil the bunch.
-Warrior Cop training
rare supreme court w?
unless they’re only allowing this because they know there is a secret stacked deck that says “yea gov can do whatever they want, suck it up” waiting back in the 11th
This is intriguing…
I’m no expert, but… this is a case from 2017, but the decision here could have immediate repercussions regarding what is currently happening.
I guess it could go either way still, but seems as though they’re trying to set a precedent here, and the fact that they’re using an old case rather than waiting several years for a current case to work its way through appeals and such, implies they understand that it’s time sensitive.
Maybe I’m wrong.
