Constitutional Accountability Center Constitutional Accountability Center
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Martin V. USA tackles wrong-house raid, government accountability

 

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) – The government’s argument Tuesday was that they shouldn’t have to pay for their error in raiding the wrong house because it comes with the territory of the job.

Both Liberal and conservative justices weren’t buying it.

“Checking the house number at the end of the driveway means exposing the agents to potential lines of fire” argued Federal Government lawyer Jeffrey Yuanlong Liu.

“How about making sure you’re on the right street?” responded Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Justices pushed back when lawyers for the government argued that the wrong-house mistake was par for the course.

“They didn’t want to delay the start of the execution of the warrants because they wanted to execute all the warrants simultaneously,” said Lui.

Lawyers on the side of the family say the trauma of the raid cost much more than the price of a kicked-down door.

“There’s this case itself is horrific,” said Miriam Becker-Cohen with the Constitutional Accountability Center.

“This innocent family was sleeping and the government banged on their door and came in. They set off a smoke grenade and, you know, terrified them.

They had a seven year old son at home,” said Becker-Cohen.

A decision in favor of the government could create more exceptions for mistakes like this one.

Becker-Cohen says victims may lose any sort of recourse.

There’s a chance that this decision gets kicked back down to the lower courts. Either way, we’ll know by June.

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