Unanimous Supreme Court sides with family whose home violently invaded by SWAT team
A unanimous Supreme Court has taken the side of a family whose home was negligently and violently invaded, without any cause, by an FBI SWAT team.
The decision in the Martin v. U.S. case sends the dispute back to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for an evaluation of the legitimate issues.
The raid, in suburban Atlanta, happened, Oct. 18, 2017.
“Officers meant to execute search and arrest warrants at a suspected gang hideout at 3741 Landau Lane but instead stormed 3756 Denville Trace, a quiet family home occupied by petitioners Hilliard Toi Cliatt, his partner Curtrina Martin, and her 7-year-old son,” the court said.
“A six member SWAT team breached the front door, detonated a flash-bang grenade, and assaulted the innocent occupants before realizing their mistake. The cause of the error was Special Agent Guerra’s reliance on a personal GPS device, combined with the team’s failure to notice the street sign for ‘Denville Trace’ and the house number visible on the mailbox.”
The government then refused to pay for the personal injuries and property damage inflicted by the armed agents, so the residents brought a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The opinion noted that the complicated law waives sovereign immunity in lawsuits “as to certain torts committed by federal employees acting within the scope of their employment,” but there are multiple statutory exceptions.
“The first is the intentional-tort exception in §2680(h), which bars claims against the government for 11 enumerated intentional torts. The second is the discretionary-function exception in §2680(a), which bars claims against the government that are based on an official’s exercise of discretionary functions.”
The unanimous ruling said the law does allow for lawsuits for assault, battery, false imprisonment, and false arrest to proceed against the United States when the torts are committed by “investigative or law enforcement officers.”
The 11th Circuit earlier had taken a novel approach, claiming the government “can escape liability when an officer’s actions have ‘some nexus with furthering federal policy’ and reasonably ‘comply with the full range of federal law.'”
Reading the law as Congress wrote it, the opinion said, “The statute generally makes the government liable under state law on the same terms as a private individual would be liable under the law of the place where the tortious conduct occurred. Because the FTCA incorporates state law as the liability standard, there is typically no conflict between federal and state law for the Supremacy Clause to resolve. While federal law may sometimes displace state law in FTCA suits where a constitutional text or federal statute supplies controlling liability rules, the Eleventh Circuit identified no such federal statute or constitutional provision displacing Georgia tort law in this case.”
One of the issues was that the agent who set up the raid threw away his GPS unit, so no evidence could be obtained from that.
WND previously has reported that according to the Institute for Justice, when given a chance, Toi told the agents the address, and they realized they raided the wrong home. There was a warrant, but the address on it was not that of the family’s home. The agents then fled, heading to the correct target.
“When police—including the FBI—raid the wrong house, they must be held responsible for the damages,” said IJ lawyer Anya Bidwell.”