Latest news with #Cliatt
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Yahoo
The FBI Raided This Innocent Georgia Family's Home. The Supreme Court Just Revived Their Lawsuit.
It's been almost eight years since an FBI SWAT team arrived at Curtrina Martin and Toi Cliatt's home, detonated a flash grenade inside, ripped the door off, and stormed into the couple's bedroom with guns drawn. Agents handcuffed Cliatt at gunpoint, and Martin, who had tried to barricade herself inside of her closet, says she fell on a rack amid the mayhem. But law enforcement would not find who they were looking for there, because that suspect, Joseph Riley, lived in a nearby house on a different street. The issue is still a relevant one for Martin and Cliatt, along with Martin's son, Gabe—who was 7 years old at the time of the raid—as the group has fought for years, unsuccessfully, for the right to sue the government over the break-in. The Supreme Court on Thursday resurrected that lawsuit, unanimously ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had settled on a faulty analysis when it barred Martin and Cliatt from suing in April 2024. But the plaintiffs' legal battle is still far from over. "If federal officers raid the wrong house, causing property damage and assaulting innocent occupants, may the homeowners sue the government for damages?" wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch. "The answer is not as obvious as it might be." The issue before the Court did not pertain to immunity for any individual law enforcement agent, whom the 11th Circuit shielded from liability in its decision last year. The justices instead considered if the lower court had erred when it also blocked the lawsuit from proceeding under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), the law that allows individuals to bring certain state-law tort claims against the federal government for damages caused by federal workers acting within the scope of their employment. There are many exceptions to the FTCA, however, that allow the feds to evade such claims—a microcosm of the convoluted maze plaintiffs must navigate to sue the government. One of those, the intentional tort exception, dooms suits that allege intentional wrongdoing, including assault, battery, false imprisonment, and false arrest, among several others. Yet the FTCA also contains a law enforcement proviso—essentially an exception to the exception—that permits claims to get around that carve-out when the misconduct in question is committed by "investigative or law enforcement officers." Notably here, Congress passed that addition in the 1970s in response to two highly publicized wrong-house raids. The 11th Circuit accordingly observed that the proviso would allow Martin and Cliatt's intentional tort claims to survive the exception. The court killed those claims anyway. It cited the Supremacy Clause, which the judges said protected the government from liability if its employees' actions had "some nexus with furthering federal policy and [could] reasonably be characterized as complying with the full range of federal law." Not so, said the Supreme Court. Somewhat surprisingly, that put it in agreement with the government—which, prior to oral arguments, conceded the 11th Circuit's conclusion there was incorrect, and that it did not care to defend it. "We find the government's concession commendable and correct," writes Gorsuch. "The FTCA does not permit the Eleventh Circuit's Supremacy Clause defense." Arguably the bigger question before the Court pertained to a different FTCA carve-out: the discretionary function exception, which, true to its name, precludes claims from proceeding if the alleged misconduct came from a duty that involves discretion. The 11th Circuit dismissed Martin and Cliatt's claims alleging negligent wrongdoing—distinctive under the law from intentional torts—writing that "the FBI did not have stringent policies or procedures in place that dictate how agents are to prepare for warrant executions." Lawrence Guerra, a former FBI special agent and the leader of the raid, thus had discretion, the judges said. But the 11th Circuit took its discretionary analysis a step further, ruling that, for acts of wrongdoing that have intentionality, the law enforcement proviso trumps the discretionary exception outright. The justices rejected that. "The law enforcement proviso…overrides only the intentional-tort exception in that subsection," the Court said, "not the discretionary-function exception or other exceptions." So where does that leave Martin and Cliatt? "On remand, the 11th Circuit will need to decide whether raiding the wrong house is a 'discretionary function,'" says Patrick Jaicomo, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, who represented the pair. Jaicomo was hoping the Court would address that very confusion. The plaintiffs "call on us to determine whether and under what circumstances the discretionary-function exception bars suits for wrong-house raids and similar misconduct," writes Gorsuch. "Unless we take up that further question, they worry, the Eleventh Circuit on remand may take too broad a view of the exception and dismiss their claims again. After all, the plaintiffs observe, in the past that court has suggested that the discretionary-function exception bars any claim 'unless a source of federal law "specifically prescribes" a course of conduct' and thus deprives an official of all discretion." The Supreme Court, however, ultimately opted for a narrow approach, though the justices acknowledged "that important questions surround whether and under what circumstances that exception may ever foreclose a suit like this one." In a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said there are no such circumstances when considering the fact pattern presented in Martin and Cliatt's suit. "Like driving, executing a warrant always involves some measure of discretion," she wrote. "Yet it is hard to see how Guerra's conduct in this case, including his allegedly negligent choice to use his personal GPS and his failure to check the street sign or house number on the mailbox before breaking down Martin's door and terrorizing the home's occupants, involved the kind of policy judgments that the discretionary-function exception was designed to protect." That would seem like the right conclusion, particularly when considering the genesis of that law enforcement proviso, which Congress enacted to give recourse to victims who suffered at the hands of near-identical misconduct. Those lawmakers clearly did not think the discretionary exception would doom their claims. That the law was meant to protect people like Martin, Cliatt, and Martin's son is why a bipartisan group of lawmakers—including Sens. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), Ron Wyden (D–Ore.), and Cynthia Lummis (R–Wyo.), along with Reps. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), Nikema Williams (D–Ga.), and Harriet Hageman (R–Wyo.)—had urged the Court to take up their case. Sotomayor's description of Guerra's negligence is also salient and was the subject of one of the more interesting exchanges when the Supreme Court heard the case. Arguing for the Justice Department, Frederick Liu, assistant to the solicitor general, said it was too much for Martin and Cliatt to expect "that the officer should have checked the house number on the mailbox." "Yeah, you might look at the address of the house before you knock down the door," Gorsuch responded. Liu countered that such a decision "is filled with policy tradeoffs." "Really?" Gorsuch replied. The post The FBI Raided This Innocent Georgia Family's Home. The Supreme Court Just Revived Their Lawsuit. appeared first on
Boston Globe
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Supreme Court revives suit from victims of botched FBI raid
Advertisement The couple barricaded themselves in a closet. The agents dragged Cliatt out at gunpoint and handcuffed him. They told Martin to keep her hands up as she pleaded to see her 7-year-old son, who had been asleep in another room. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up As they questioned Cliatt, he gave his address. It was different from the one for the suspected gang hideout the agents had a warrant to enter. One of the agents, Lawrence Guerra, had earlier identified the correct house, which he said looked similar and was nearby, on a different street. But on the morning of the raid, he said he went to the wrong house because he had been misdirected by his GPS device. That could not be confirmed, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court, as Guerra threw the device away not long after the raid. Gorsuch added that the agents had overlooked plenty of indications they were in the wrong place — a street sign, a house number, and a different car parked in the driveway. Advertisement The couple sued for false arrest, false imprisonment, assault, battery, and other claims but lost in the lower courts on a variety of grounds. Notably, that government officials' actions are protected from lawsuits when they perform a duty that involves discretion. The case turned on the Federal Tort Claims Act, which sometimes allows suits against the government for money notwithstanding the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which ordinarily bars such suits unless the government consents. A 1974 amendment to the law made it easier to sue over wrong-house raids after notorious ones in Collinsville, Ill., but the law is subject to a tangled series of 13 exceptions. 'If federal officers raid the wrong house, causing property damage and assaulting innocent occupants, may the homeowners sue the government for damages?' Gorsuch asked in his opinion. 'The answer is not as obvious as it might be.' The court clarified aspects of the analysis of when such cases are allowed and returned the case to the lower courts for further consideration. In a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, said 'there is reason to think' that the plaintiffs will ultimately prevail, saying that Congress had amended the law in response to the Collinsville raids to allow cases like this one. Patrick Jaicomo, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, which represented the plaintiffs, welcomed the ruling. 'The Supreme Court was right to let the Martin family's case move forward for the FBI's botched raid of their home,' he said in a statement. 'The court's decision today acknowledged how far the circuit courts have strayed from the purpose of the Federal Tort Claims Act, which is to ensure remedies to the victims of federal harms.' Advertisement This article originally appeared in
Boston Globe
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Supreme Court revives lawsuit from Atlanta family whose home was wrongly raided by the FBI
Martin and Cliatt filed a lawsuit against the federal government accusing the agents of assault and battery, false arrest and other violations. But lower courts tossed out the case. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found they couldn't sue over what amounted to an honest mistake. Advertisement The appeals court also found the lawsuit was barred under a provision of the Constitution known as the Supremacy Clause, which says federal laws take precedence over state laws. The family's lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that Congress clearly allowed for lawsuits like theirs after a pair of similar headline-making raids on wrong houses in 1974. The 11th Circuit was also ruling differently than other courts around the country, they said. Public interest groups from across the political spectrum urged the justices to overturn the ruling, saying its reasoning would severely narrow the legal path for people to sue the federal government in law-enforcement accountability cases. Advertisement
New York Times
04-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Another Reason People Fear the Government
Why do Americans have such deep distrust of their government? It's a simple question with a complex answer, but here's part of the reason: All too often, the government wrongfully inflicts profound harm on American citizens and then leaves them with no recourse. It violates the law and leaves its victims with no way to be made whole. Let me give you two recent examples, both taken from Supreme Court cases that were argued this term and have not yet been decided. In the predawn hours of Oct. 18, 2017, an F.B.I. SWAT team detonated a flash-bang grenade at a home at 3756 Denville Trace in Atlanta. A team of federal agents rushed in. The family inside was terrified. Hilliard Toi Cliatt lived there with his partner, Curtrina Martin, and her 7-year-old son, Gabe. They had no idea who had entered their house. Cliatt tried to protect Martin by grabbing her and hiding in a closet. Martin screamed, 'I need to get my son.' The agents pulled Cliatt and Martin out of the closet, holding them at gunpoint as Martin fell to the floor, half-naked. When they asked Cliatt his address, 'All the noise just ended.' He told them: 3756 Denville Trace. But it turned out they were supposed to be at 3741 Landau Lane, an entirely different house down the block. The agents left, raided the correct house and then returned to apologize. The lead agent gave the family his business card and left the family, according to their Supreme Court petition, in 'stunned disbelief.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Epoch Times
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Supreme Court Weighs Case About Mistaken FBI Raid
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 29 over whether the FBI should be protected from a civil suit over its mistaken raiding of a Georgia couple's home in 2017. In the early morning hours of Oct. 18, 2024, FBI Special Agent Lawrence Guerra mistakenly believed he had arrived at a gang member's home to execute a search warrant. Instead, he smashed through the door of a different home—that of Hilliard Toi Cliatt and his partner, Curtrina Martin. According to their Although Guerra had conducted a pre-dawn drive-by in preparation, court filings state that the GPS directed them to a different home. The address of Cliatt's and Martin's home was not on the house itself but was instead on the mailbox and 'is not visible from the street,' according to the Justice Department's filing. During oral arguments on April 29, the Supreme Court weighed whether Martin and Cliatt should be able to sue the government. A law known as the Federal Tort Claims Act generally allows individuals to sue the government for certain acts, such as assault, false arrest, or abuse of process. It includes an exception, however, for legal claims involving the government's discretion in performing a particular duty or function. This was the caveat the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit cited in refusing to allow the couple's lawsuit to proceed. Martin and Cliatt, however, pointed to a provision added to the law in 1974 after mistaken raids in Collinsville, Illinois. That provision allowed legal arguments by plaintiffs based on 'acts or omissions of investigative or law enforcement officers of the United States Government.' Related Stories 4/29/2025 3/19/2024 The justices' line of questioning on April 29 indicated they would remand or send the case back to the appeals court with a narrow win for the couple that entailed more consideration by another judge. At one point, Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed incredulous at some of the comments made by Assistant to the Solicitor General Frederick Liu, who suggested that the FBI agents' mistakes were protected as an attempt to exercise discretion. Liu argued that because there was no specific policy directing the FBI agent not to search a house other than the suspect's, he retained some level of legal protection. 'No policy says don't break down the wrong house—door of a house ... don't traumatize its occupants, really?' Gorsuch asked. Liu said that while the United States' policy 'of course' is to execute warrants at the correct house, 'stating the policy at that high level of generality doesn't foreclose or prescribe any particular action and how an officer goes about identifying the right house.' He went on to suggest that officers may need to consider things such as public safety and efficiency when determining whether to take an 'extra precaution' to ensure they're at the right house. Gorsuch interjected, saying, 'You might look at the address of the house before you knock down the door.' 'Yes,' Liu responded, adding, 'that sort of decision is filled with policy tradeoffs.' Gorsch interrupted, asking, 'Really?' After Liu said that checking the house number at the end of the driveway could expose agents to potential lines of fire, Gorsuch asked, 'How about making sure you're on the right street ... checking the street sign? Is that too much?' Liu told Justice Sonia Sotomayor that the 1974 addition removed one layer of protection for officers but allowed another layer to stay in place. 'That is so ridiculous,' Sotomayor said. 'Congress is looking at the Collinsville raid and providing a remedy to people who have been wrongfully raided, and you're now saying, no, they really didn't want to protect them fully.'
