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Justices to rule on wrong-house raid

Family sued FBI agents under tort claims law

By: Bart Jansen
USA Today

..... Groggy and disoriented, Trina Martin awoke to the barrage of a half-dozen men smashing through the front door of her split-level Atlanta home. The Cliatt, jolted her drowsy partner. Toi Cliatt, who was lying on the bed. He jumped to his feet.
..... As Martin scrambled to protect her 7-year old son in his room acroos the hall, Cliatt pulled her instead into a walk-in closet where he stored a shotgun to defend against intruders.
..... Then a flash-bang grenade detonated in a burst of white in a front room. Martin's son Gabe, hiding alone under a blanket, said the explosion left his ears ringing and smelled like burning batteries.
..... "It was just monstrous, a really loud noise," Martin told USA Today of the battering ram. "Whoever came into our home, they came for a mission. I felt like that mission was to kill us."
..... She was mistaken, but so were the intruders. The armed men storming Martin's home were FBI agents searching for a gang suspect in the wrong house at 4 A,M. on October 18, 2017. The correct gang split-level house the FBI agents were targeting was 436 feet down the street.
..... The mistaken search is now the subject of a Supreme Court case over whether the family can sue the FBI for compensation, with oral arguments scheduled for April 29. [2025]
..... Justice Department lawyers have argued that the FBI agents are immune from the lawsuit because regardless of whether they erred about the address, the search was part of their official duties.
..... If the Supreme Court sides with the government and rules against the family being able to sue, legal experts say it could foreclose any lawsuits against federal law enforcement officers.

Federal Tort Claims Act lawsuit

..... The family sued the FBI agents in September 2019 under the Federal Tort Claims Act saying the mistaken search has left them shaken and that they're still suffering the consequences. The lawsuit accuses the agency of negligence, emotional distress, trespass, false imprisonment, and assault and battery.
..... Congress amended the tort law in 1974 to allow lawsuits against federal law enforcement authorities.
...... The change came after two wrong-house raids in southern Illinois a year earlier.
..... The statue removes sovereign immunity from lawsuits for "assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process or malicious prosecution" based on "acts or omissions of investigative or law enforcement officers of the Untied States Government."
..... But even if the Supreme Court overturns the appeals court, the family would still have to prove they were hared at a trial.
..... "It underscores how crazy this case is because it's exactly the scenario that Congress was worried about when it amended the act. To have to go to the Supreme Court to get what Congress clearly provided is very frustrating," Patrick Jaicomo, a lawyer form the Institutes for Justice representing the family, told USA Today.

Wrong-house searches in 1973

..... Congress added a provision to the Federal Tort Claims Act to allow lawsuits against law enforcement after federal agents mistakenly stormed two homes in Collinsville, Illinois, on April 23, 1973.
..... In the first house, Herbert and Evelyn Giglotto awoke to the noise of plainclothes agents smashing down their door and holding them at gunpoint, according to a filing in the Atlanta case by six current members of Congress. The agents left without explanation after realizing they were at the wrong address, the filing said.
..... A half-hour later, other agents made the same mistake at another house. Don and Virginia Askew were sitting down to dinner with their son Michael when plainclothes agents surrounded their house, some armed with shotguns.
..... Current lawmakers - Senators Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming: and Representatives Harriet Hageman R-Wyoming, Nikeme Williams, D-Georgia, and Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky - said in their filing with the Supreme Court that Congress changed the statute specifically for wrong-house searches like the one in Atlanta.
..... "The proviso was tailor-made for cases like this one," the lawmakers said.

Rulings called "backwards'

..... The family sued in federal court where judges ruled that even though one portion of the tort law allowed a lawsuit against federal law enforcement, another portion of the statute prevents such a lawsuit because of the discretion granted law enforcement officers. But some lawmakers and legal experts disputed those decisions.
..... U.S. Distinct Court Judge J.P. Boulee dismissed the family's lawsuit in December 2022. he ruled the Federal Tort Claims Act barred claims for negligence, infliction of emotional distress, trespass and interference with private property. Boulee also dismissed claims for false imprisonment and assault and battery under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which holds that federal is supreme above state law.
..... The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal under the Supremacy Clause by ruling that law enforcement agents should be afford the discretion to make mistakes.
..... The supreme Court appointed Christopher Mills, a lawyer form Charleston, South Carolina, to flesh out arguments about the Supremacy Clause. Mills argued the clause blocks the lawsuit because the Federal Tort Claim Act directs federal judges to interpret the merits of this case type based on state law.
..... "The statute directs federal courts to step into the shoes of state courts," Mills wrote. "A state rule that conflicts with federal law is preempted."
..... But Gregory Sisk, a law professor at University of St. Thomas in Minnesota who has written a book about litigation with the federal government, said in a written argument that interpretation is "contrary to Congress's intent" and leaves families with "no meaningful remedy for the trauma they suffered."
..... The six current lawmakers who filed an argument in the case said the 11th Circuit turned the Supremacy Clause "on its ear" by not recognizing Congress' power to "waive the feral government's immunity."
..... "The Eleventh Circuit has matters backwards," they wrote. The search lasted only about five minutes, but the repercussion have echoed for years.

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