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Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Government Argues It's Too Much To Ask the FBI To Check the Address Before Blowing Up a Home
The Supreme Court last week heard a case from a family whose home was wrongly raided by the FBI, after which they were barred from bringing their civil suit to trial. Before the Court: Should the plaintiffs have been able to sue the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA)? Oral arguments got into the weeds of the FTCA, under which plaintiffs Curtrina Martin and Toi Cliatt were prohibited from suing, even though Congress revised that law in the 1970s to give recourse to victims of federal law enforcement misconduct. But there was one particularly instructive exchange between the Court and Frederick Liu, assistant to the solicitor general at the Justice Department—a back-and-forth that is decidedly less in the weeds. Liu: The officers here were weighing public safety considerations, efficiency considerations, operational security, the idea that they didn't want to delay the start of the execution of the warrants because they wanted to execute all the warrants simultaneously. Those are precisely the sorts of policy tradeoffs that an officer makes in determining, 'Well, should I take one more extra precaution to make sure I'm at the right house?' Here, Petitioner suggests, for example, that the officer should have checked the house number on the mailbox. Justice Neil Gorsuch: Yeah, you might look at the address of the house before you knock down the door. Liu: Yes. And, and, as the district court found at 52(a), that sort of decision is filled with policy tradeoffs because checking the house— Gorsuch: Really? Liu: —number at the end of the driveway means exposing the agents to potential lines of fire from the windows. Gorsuch: How about making sure you're on the right street? Is that…you know, asking too much? That the government indeed thinks it is asking too much to do basic due diligence here—a.k.a., requiring agents to ensure they are in the right place before detonating an explosive inside a home and ripping the door from its hinges—epitomizes the state's general allergy to accountability. More dire is that the argument has worked. The FBI SWAT team "executed the warrant while it was still dark outside," wrote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in ruling against Martin and Cliatt last year, and "difficult to ascertain the house numbers on the mailboxes." The leader of the raid, Lawrence Guerra, thus acted reasonably, the court said, when he led officers to the wrong house. There, agents set off a flash grenade, took the front door off, stormed into the couple's bedroom, handcuffed Cliatt, and held the couple at gunpoint, rendering Martin unable to get to her seven-year-old son in a different room. "I don't know if there is a proper word that I can use," to describe the fear she felt that night, Martin told Reason last year, prior to the Court taking up her case. "There's been a lot of incidents of negligence, and it's like no one takes accountability. And there needs to be awareness. It's really sad that the people that you look up to for protection are the ones that seem to harm you the most." Also distressing: the government believes it should be able to pair stratospheric levels of power with proportionally low standards. It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will agree. The post Government Argues It's Too Much To Ask the FBI To Check the Address Before Blowing Up a Home appeared first on
Indian Express
30-04-2025
- Indian Express
‘Mission to kill us': US family wants to sue FBI after accidental raid at home
A Georgia family is urging the US Supreme Court to let them sue FBI agents who mistakenly raided their home with flash bang grenades and firearms, terrifying them during a predawn operation gone wrong. Curtrinia 'Trina' Martin, her seven-year-old son Gabe, and her fiancé Hillard 'Toi' Cliatt were asleep when agents battered down their door on 18 October 2017. Masked officers stormed in, detonated flash bang grenades, and dragged a half-naked Martin at gunpoint from her closet. Cliatt was pulled across the floor and handcuffed as several armed agents surrounded him. Gabe, hiding under his bedsheets, was left traumatised. The mistake became clear only after an agent asked Cliatt to confirm his address — the team had meant to raid a similar-looking house four doors down. The agents simply walked out and conducted the operation at the correct location. One agent later returned to apologise. But the damage was done. 'I thought someone was breaking in,' Martin told ABC News. 'It was so chaotic that I thought they had a mission, and the mission was to kill us.' Gabe, now 13, told the outlet: 'I didn't really have a childhood growing up because of that… It really kind of changed me as a person.' Martin says her son became anxious, began peeling paint off walls, pulling threads from clothes, and had to switch schools twice. The family is seeking to sue the agents under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which permits certain lawsuits against federal employees. They argue the raid was negligent, wrongful, and preventable — agents had taken daytime photos, prepared notes, and distributed images, but still stormed the wrong house. So far, lower courts have sided with the FBI, saying the agents 'simply made a mistake.' But during Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing, some justices raised eyebrows. 'No policy says don't break down the wrong door?' asked Justice Neil Gorsuch. 'Don't traumatize the occupants? Really?' Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson acknowledged law enforcement deserves protections — but questioned whether they applied here.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
FBI Raided The Wrong Atlanta Home And Now Messed Around and Found out
Trina Martin, her son Gabe, and ex-partner Toi Cliatt were the victims of an FBI raid in the predawn hours of October 2017. As they slept, FBI agents burst through the front door of their home and let off a flash grenade. A terrified Martin pleaded to get her son but was told to 'shut up,' according to USA Today. Gabe, who was only 7 years old, held his hands up in fear as agents entered his room. The incident lasted only five minutes before the agents realized they were in the wrong home after they asked Cliatt to repeat the address. They then left without an explanation to pursue their target four doors down. They came back to apologize only after completing their mission, according to The Independent. Martin told AP News that the raid left them traumatized. 'We'll never be the same, mentally, emotionally, psychologically... Mentally you can suppress it, but you can't really get over it.' Martin's son, Gabe, became so anxious after the raid that he started to pull threads out of his clothes and peel paint off of the walls. It has been eight years since the mistaken raid, and the family is still fighting to get their foot through the court doors. They first sued the agents under the Federal Tort Claims Act in 2019. The FTCA is a federal law that removes immunity and allows individuals to sue for 'assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest abuse of process or malicious prosecution,' per USA Today. However, the suit was thrown out by The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 after judges agreed that Martin cannot sue over an honest mistake, according to SFGate. But on Tuesday, it looked like Supreme Court justices were more sympathetic to the victims. Per The Washington Post, conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor were not convinced the raid was a 'reasonable mistake' in the way the government's attorney suggested. Other Justices were wary of using the case to clarify when federal agents can be held accountable for mistakes. Even though The Supreme Court argued back and forth recently, a decision is not expected until June. Right now, there's no certainty that The Supreme Court will overrule the appeal court's decision. It does look like it is most likely considering sending the case back to the appeals court to give the case a second thought. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court seems likely to punt in case about mistaken FBI raid
It only took minutes for the FBI to realize it had raided the wrong home. But in that time, masked federal agents smashed through an Atlanta family's front door, startling Trina Martin and her boyfriend at the time out of bed with a flash-bang grenade and guns raised, as her 7-year-old son screamed from another room. Now, the Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether the family can seek damages for the 2017 botched raid, to hold law enforcement accountable for the error. The justices Tuesday seemed likely to punt on the question and have a lower court weigh the matter further. However, they also expressed skepticism of the government's contention that the officers were acting with discretion — a detail that could be key to deciding whether they're left on the hook. 'You might look at the address … the right street,' Justice Neil Gorsuch said of the officers who raided the home. 'Is that asking too much?' Gorsuch asked. At the heart of the case is the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which waives the government's sovereign immunity and lets people injured by certain actions of federal officers bring some claims for damages against it under state law. The law was amended in 1974, after a pair of wrong-house raids made headlines, which Martin argues makes it clear that her lawsuit should be allowed to proceed. But other exceptions to the law, which seem to conflict, make it more complicated. An Atlanta federal judge threw out the suit in 2022, and last year, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The justices agreed to hear the case in January. Patrick Jaicomo, a lawyer for Martin, said Tuesday that 'innocent victims' of the government's mistakes must have a legal remedy available. He suggested that by ruling for the government, the justices would eliminate 'most, if not all, of the thrust' of the FTCA. 'The government's policy is to raid the right house,' Jaicomo said, suggesting that if a delivery person dropped a pizza at the wrong address, the pizza shop would still have to issue a refund. Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned what Congress's intention when it amended the law would have been if not to provide protection for situations like Martin's. One exception to the FTCA prevents plaintiffs from suing the government for damages that arise out of an officer's discretionary acts, which the government says applies to this case. Sotomayor also questioned the government's position that the agents were acting within their discretion. 'I don't know how going into the wrong house can be described as discretionary,' she said. Frederick Liu, who argued for the government, suggested it was a 'reasonable mistake' to enter the wrong home — an example of the 'policy trade-offs' officers make when placed in risky situations. When Gorsuch pushed back that verifying the address, or even the street, seemed like a low bar, Liu said the officers might have been weighing other public safety considerations, such as their visibility to the targets if they were to examine the location more closely. Despite that, several justices suggested sending the questions back to the 11th Circuit for further consideration might be the best course of action. A decision is expected by this summer. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
29-04-2025
- The Hill
Supreme Court seems likely to punt in case about mistaken FBI raid
It only took minutes for the FBI to realize it had raided the wrong home. But in that time, masked federal agents smashed through an Atlanta family's front door, startling Trina Martin and her boyfriend at the time out of bed with a flashbang grenade and guns raised, as her 7-year-old son screamed from another room. Now, the Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether the family can seek damages for the 2017 botched raid, to hold law enforcement accountable for their error. The justices on Tuesday seemed likely to punt on the question, letting a lower court weigh the matter further. However, they also expressed skepticism of the government's contention that the officers were acting with discretion — a detail that could be key to deciding whether they're left on the hook. 'You might look at the address…the right street,' Justice Neil Gorsuch said of the officers who raided the home. 'Is that asking too much?' Gorsuch asked. At the heart of the case is the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which waives the government's sovereign immunity and lets people injured by certain actions of federal officers bring some state-law claims for damages against it. The law was amended in 1974, after a pair of wrong-house raids made headlines, which Martin argues makes it clear that their lawsuit should be allowed to proceed. But other exceptions to the law, which seem to conflict, make it more complicated than that. An Atlanta federal judge threw out the suit in 2022, and last year, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. The justices agreed to hear the case in January. Patrick Jaicomo, a lawyer for Martin, said Tuesday that 'innocent victims' of the government's mistakes must have a legal remedy available to them. He suggested that by ruling for the government, the justices would eliminate 'most, if not all, of the thrust' of the FTCA. 'The government's policy is to raid the right house,' Jaicomo said, suggesting that if a delivery person dropped a pizza at the wrong address, the pizza shop would still have to issue a refund. Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned what Congress meant to do when it amended the law if not to provide protection for situations like Martin's. One exception to the FTCA prevents plaintiffs from suing the government for damages that arise out of an officer's discretionary acts, which the government says applies to this case. She also questioned the government's position that the agents were acting within their discretion. 'I don't know how going into the wrong house can be described as discretionary,' she said. Frederick Liu, who argued for the government, suggested that it was a 'reasonable mistake' to enter the wrong home — an example of the 'policy tradeoffs' officers make when placed in risky situations. When Gorsuch pushed back that checking that the address, or even the street, seemed like a low bar, Liu said the officers might have been weighing other public safety considerations, such as their visibility to the targets if they were to examine the location more closely. Despite that, several justices suggested that sending the questions back to the 11th Circuit for further consideration might be the best course of action.
