Latest news with #CurtrinaMartin
Newsweek
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
The Supreme Court Rightly Revives Police Responsibility for Wrong House Raids
Let's hope only a small number of us think it's OK for squads of heavily armed federal agents to break down our doors, throw in some flash bangs, and then throw us and our children to the ground—only to realize they are in the wrong house. And if it's not OK, the victims of this sort of nightmare should be paid for the damage to their homes and the injuries they suffered. Yet, last year, in the case of Hilliard Toi Cliatt, his partner Curtrina Martin, and her 7-year-old son, an Atlanta-based federal appeals court said the victims were powerless to do anything about it. In a timely message to federal law enforcement, the Supreme Court has unanimously overturned that court, allowing the claim for damages to proceed. The U.S. Supreme Court is seen at dusk on Jan. 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Supreme Court is seen at dusk on Jan. 18, 2025, in Washington, for allowing the lawsuit isn't about demonizing the police. When some activists did demonize them following the murder of George Floyd, the police retreat left us with dirty, dangerous, and declining cities, bolstering Donald Trump's case to reclaim the presidency. Now Trump is showing us the worst of the contrary view—shoot first, and—if anyone asks questions later—shoot them too. Trump is a consequence of the perceived lawlessness of the left—lawlessness against the police—lawlessness regarding immigration. Trump embodies right wing lawlessness—judges arrested, a senator assaulted, court orders ignored, corruption rampant. None of these national mood swings likely make sense to Curtrina Martin, her partner, and her son. They simply wanted to live in peace and to punish those who shattered it. Long ago, they would have been powerless. A federal statute specifically barred lawsuits against the police for the injuries they might inflict. But in 1973, Herbert Giglotto and his wife awoke to find 15 plain-clothed federal agents in their bedroom. They tied Giglotto up, held a gun to his head, and ransacked his house. Realizing they were in the wrong house, the agents left. Nearby, 30 minutes later, agents made the same mistake again bursting in on an innocent family and holding them at gunpoint. This seemed intolerable to Congress, so the next year it amended the Federal Tort Claims Act to allow victims to the federal government when law enforcement agents abused private citizens with things like assaults and false arrests. That should have settled things. So why did the appeals court block the Martin lawsuit? It's complicated, but let's just say that this law is a tangle of rules and exceptions, and for the past 50 years courts have eroded victims' rights to the point where almost all lawsuits against federal agents fail. Most of the time, courts hold that officers were exercising permissible "discretion" while inflicting injuries, and, the lower court in Martin used the novel idea that the supremacy of federal law over state law neutered the 1974 law's provision exposing law enforcement agents to the same liability a private citizen would have faced under local law. Yet the heart of the rulings seems to have been the same wild pendulum swings we see in society as a whole when it comes to law enforcement. When Congress changed the law in 1974, America was still reeling from the Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinations, the Kent State killings, and the 1968 "police riot" in Chicago. Support for the police was at an all-time low and crime shot up. During the two Reagan terms, the two Bush presidencies, and during Trump term one, America swung back toward lionizing rather than criticizing the police, with unconditional support for the police peaking after 9/11 and only declining again 20 years later with the George Floyd murder and the outcry that followed it. Perhaps this time, with a unanimous ruling from the Supreme Court, the judiciary can help American justice find a third way. The Martin case isn't over. The High Court sent it back to the lower court to consider the part of the law that blocks lawsuits challenging discretionary decisions that implicate public policy. If the court rejects the silly idea that a wrong house raid is the product of a public policy judgment call, common sense may prevail in lawsuits against federal law enforcement—righteous police will be protected and rogue police will be accountable. Thomas G. Moukawsher is a former Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits. He is the author of the book, The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce It. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
In NCLA Amicus Win, Supreme Court Revives Innocent Family's Suit over FBI's Wrong-House Raid
Curtrina Martin, et al. v. United States of America, et al. Washington, DC, June 13, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' dismissal of Martin v. United States, an Atlanta family's Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) suit against the government for a wrong-house raid in 2017. FBI agents invaded the home of Trina Martin and her family, shackling her partner on the floor and holding a half-naked Ms. Martin at gunpoint, while she expressed concern for her seven-year-old son's safety elsewhere in the house. One big problem: the FBI SWAT team had knocked down the door of the wrong home, on the wrong street, because the agent in charge had failed to verify its clearly marked address. The Justices remanded the case to the Eleventh Circuit for reconsideration. As NCLA's amicus curiae brief urged, the Eleventh Circuit should ultimately rule on remand that the FTCA does not shield the government from liability when federal law enforcement officers raid the wrong house. Ms. Martin and her family filed FTCA claims against the government for assault, battery, and false imprisonment, as well as Fourth Amendment claims against the individual FBI agents. The Eleventh Circuit below upheld the district court's dismissal of the case, concluding that the agents' actions violated no 'clearly established' law. It ruled that the family suffered harm resulting from an agent's 'discretionary act' (i.e., failing to check the house address), warranting total governmental immunity and no path to relief for the Martin family. The Eleventh Circuit also determined that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution could shield the FBI and its agents from FTCA suits. NCLA's amicus brief forcefully argued that the Eleventh Circuit's mode of inquiry—which departed from the analytical process employed by all sister circuits—was inconsistent with the language and intent of the FTCA. Congress amended the FTCA in 1974 expressly to ensure that innocent people subjected to wrong-house raids and similar abuses by federal law enforcement officers would have a cause of action to sue. By expanding the FTCA's discretionary-function exception to encompass wrong-house raids such as this one, the Eleventh Circuit's decision effectively nullified the 1974 law. As Justice Sotomayor underscored in her concurrence (joined by Justice Jackson), 'Courts … should not ignore the existence of the [1974 amendment], or the factual context that inspired its passage, when construing the discretionary-function exception. … [A]ny interpretation should allow for liability in the very cases Congress amended the FTCA to remedy.' Today's Supreme Court ruling does not decide whether the 'discretionary function' exception applies in this case, an issue that the Court ordered the Eleventh Circuit to resolve, but the Justices found that the Supremacy Clause is not a defense the government may invoke in FTCA lawsuits. Justice Gorsuch explained in his opinion for the Court: 'The FTCA is the 'supreme' federal law addressing the United States' liability for torts committed by its agents. It supplies the 'exclusive remedy' for damages claims arising out of federal employees' official conduct.' NCLA released the following statements: 'The Supreme Court rightly held that innocent civilians should not be stripped of any meaningful remedy when they suffer abuse at the hands of federal law enforcement. The Martin family deserves their day in court. On remand, NCLA trusts that the Eleventh Circuit will carefully evaluate what qualifies as 'reasonable' law enforcement—and recognize that a trained FBI agent who fails to check a clearly marked house number before commencing a raid because 'it was dark outside' does not qualify.'— Casey Norman, Litigation Counsel, NCLA 'Law enforcement officers should not be able to evade accountability for entering the wrong house and terrorizing an innocent family in the middle of the night when Congress intentionally provided for redress in cases against the federal government in such circumstances. Thankfully, the Supreme Court's decision reaffirms that the Eleventh Circuit was wrong to preclude relief in this case and others like it.'— Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel, NCLA 'All too often, court-created doctrines are used to reduce the government's liability to people whose civil liberties it has violated. Congratulations to our friends at the Institute for Justice for convincing the Supreme Court to clip the wings of such a doctrine in this case—at least where Congress had explicitly created a cause of action to sue.'— Mark Chenoweth, President, NCLA For more information visit the page here. ABOUT NCLA NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA's public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans' fundamental rights. ### CONTACT: Joe Martyak New Civil Liberties Alliance 703-403-1111 in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
New York Times
7 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Supreme Court Revives Suit From Victims of Botched F.B.I. Raid
The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously revived a suit from a couple whose home was mistakenly raided by the F.B.I., giving them a fresh opportunity to try to persuade lower courts that they should be able to sue the federal government for the harm they suffered. The case, Martin v. United States, No. 24-362, arose from a raid very early on a fall morning in 2017, when F.B.I. agents used a battering ram to knock down the front door of the home of the couple, Hilliard Toi Cliatt and Curtrina Martin. Guns drawn, the agents set off a flash-bang grenade and charged inside. The couple barricaded themselves in a closet. The agents dragged Mr. Cliatt out at gunpoint and handcuffed him. They told Ms. Martin to keep her hands up as she pleaded to see her 7-year-old son, who had been asleep in another room. As they questioned Mr. Cliatt, he gave his address. It was different from the one 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. 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 notwithstanding the doctrine of sovereign immunity. 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 exceptions and provisos.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court signals it will revive lawsuit over FBI raid on the wrong house
The Supreme Court signaled Tuesday that it will revive a lawsuit from a suburban Atlanta family that was mistakenly held at gunpoint in their bedroom after the FBI accidentally conducted a predawn raid at the wrong address. After about an hour of oral argument, it seemed clear that conservative and liberal justices were prepared to send the case back to a federal appeals court that barred the suit from moving forward. That would represent a narrow win, at least, for the family. Curtrina Martin, her partner and her then-7-year-old son were startled awake in 2017 when a six-agent SWAT team – believing that they were targeting the home of a gang member – smashed her front door with a battering ram, detonated a flashbang grenade and rushed in. 'You might look at the address of the house before you knock down the door,' an incredulous Justice Neil Gorsuch told the lawyer representing the Justice Department. 'How about making sure you're on the right street? Just the right street? Checking the street sign? Is that, you know, asking too much?' Martin's lawyers said her address was 'clearly visible' on her mailbox. At issue for the Supreme Court is whether the family may sue the government for damages. In 1974, Congress expanded the ability of Americans to sue federal law enforcement agents following other high-profile raids at the wrong house. One of the questions for the justices was whether that expansion should apply in Martin's case. The federal government argued in part that it should not apply because federal law bars such suits when a federal employee is exercising discretion in carrying out their work. In this case, the government argued that the agents had to exercise discretion in how they confirmed they were at the correct house. 'We understand the discretion here to be the discretion as to how to identify the target of a search warrant,' Frederick Liu, arguing for the Justice Department, told the justices. Liu said the agents had to make decisions 'filled with policy considerations' before carrying out the raid that had to do with 'efficiency' and 'operational security.' The FBI didn't want to delay the raid, he said, because it was carrying out several other searches simultaneously. But that argument drew skepticism from several of the justices. 'I don't understand how the act of going into a wrong house can be discretionary,' said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court's senior liberal. Even though the court seemed prepared to send Martin's case back to the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals for further review, it wasn't clear whether there was a majority for some of the much broader arguments she was making that could open the federal government up to more litigation. Several justices, including Gorsuch, seemed to be leaning toward a decision that would be limited to Martin's claim without having sweeping implications for future cases. Patrick Jaicomo, who argued on behalf of Martin, said the agents clearly had no discretion to wind up at the wrong house. 'The preparation is kind of immaterial to the ultimate result here,' said Jaicomo, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice. 'If you really, really meant to drop the pizza off at the right address, it doesn't matter. You still need to give a refund if you drop it off at the wrong address.' CNN's Devan Cole contributed to this report.
CNN
29-04-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Supreme Court signals it will revive lawsuit over FBI raid on the wrong house
The Supreme Court signaled Tuesday that it will revive a lawsuit from a suburban Atlanta family that was mistakenly held at gunpoint in their bedroom after the FBI accidentally conducted a predawn raid at the wrong address. After about an hour of oral argument, it seemed clear that conservative and liberal justices were prepared to send the case back to a federal appeals court that barred the suit from moving forward. That would represent a narrow win, at least, for the family. Curtrina Martin, her partner and her then-7-year-old son were startled awake in 2017 when a six-agent SWAT team – believing that they were targeting the home of a gang member – smashed her front door with a battering ram, detonated a flashbang grenade and rushed in. 'You might look at the address of the house before you knock down the door,' an incredulous Justice Neil Gorsuch told the lawyer representing the Justice Department. 'How about making sure you're on the right street? Just the right street? Checking the street sign? Is that, you know, asking too much?' Martin's lawyers said her address was 'clearly visible' on her mailbox. At issue for the Supreme Court is whether the family may sue the government for damages. In 1974, Congress expanded the ability of Americans to sue federal law enforcement agents following other high-profile raids at the wrong house. One of the questions for the justices was whether that expansion should apply in Martin's case. The federal government argued in part that it should not apply because federal law bars such suits when a federal employee is exercising discretion in carrying out their work. In this case, the government argued that the agents had to exercise discretion in how they confirmed they were at the correct house. 'We understand the discretion here to be the discretion as to how to identify the target of a search warrant,' Frederick Liu, arguing for the Justice Department, told the justices. Liu said the agents had to make decisions 'filled with policy considerations' before carrying out the raid that had to do with 'efficiency' and 'operational security.' The FBI didn't want to delay the raid, he said, because it was carrying out several other searches simultaneously. But that argument drew skepticism from several of the justices. 'I don't understand how the act of going into a wrong house can be discretionary,' said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court's senior liberal. Even though the court seemed prepared to send Martin's case back to the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals for further review, it wasn't clear whether there was a majority for some of the much broader arguments she was making that could open the federal government up to more litigation. Several justices, including Gorsuch, seemed to be leaning toward a decision that would be limited to Martin's claim without having sweeping implications for future cases. Patrick Jaicomo, who argued on behalf of Martin, said the agents clearly had no discretion to wind up at the wrong house. 'The preparation is kind of immaterial to the ultimate result here,' said Jaicomo, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice. 'If you really, really meant to drop the pizza off at the right address, it doesn't matter. You still need to give a refund if you drop it off at the wrong address.' CNN's Devan Cole contributed to this report.
