The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a family from Atlanta can now sue law enforcement for “wrong-house raids” after an incident in their home in 2017, NPR reports.
It’s a case of “wrong-house raids” — defined as when local, state, or federal officers enter a private home to find a suspect in the wrong home — and is subject to litigation. Unless Congress sets out certain circumstances, the federal government is generally off limits to being sued. The Supreme Court’s job was to figure out if what happened to the Atlanta family fell under those circumstances.
Agents from an FBI SWAT team forcibly entered the wrong home, belonging to Trina Martin, her 7-year-old son Gabe, and her partner, Toi Cliatt, while looking for a neighbor accused of being involved in gang activity.
The family sued the FBI and agents involved in 2019, thanks to a 1974 amended statute of the 1946 Federal Tort Claims Act, but the case was dismissed. The high court questioned if victims were now permitted to sue — or if they could sue on sole grounds that the perpetrators of the raid were following government orders, in this case, orders from the FBI. Without the amendment in place, the act would permit lawsuits against the federal government for harm caused by its employees.
According to The Associated Press, agents quickly apologized for their mistake, with the team leader claiming his personal GPS device led the team to the wrong address. However, Martin and Cliatt were not buying it, saying the ordeal left lasting trauma in addition to a damaged home for them and their young son.
In the victim’s initial suit that lower courts tossed out, the government argued the FBI shouldn’t be liable for each wrong judgment call, as officers were told to go to the right home, not the home they raided in a stressful situation. The government sees it as the officers going after a “dangerous individual,” and making the government pay for a mistake undermines their ability to do their jobs in the future.
However, in the unanimous ruling, the high court felt it would be wrong to throw the case out based on the Supremacy Clause, which permits federal law to overstep state laws when the two are at odds. “Congress has entered the field and expressly bound the federal government to accept liability under state tort law on the same terms as a ‘private individual,’” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote.
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor suggested wrong house raids aren’t the types of mistakes immune to accountability. And Martin couldn’t agree more. Once the news made it to her, she says it gave her hope. “Between laughing and crying, I can’t stop,” Martin said, saying she is ecstatic with the ruling.
“If the Supreme Court can say they’re wrong, it gives me all the hope in the world.”
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