Supreme Court agrees to hear potentially game-changing FBI case

The members of the U.S. Supreme Court have agreed to hear a case that could have a big impact on the way the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) goes about its job. 

The case is Martin v. United States, and Newsweek reports that the Supreme Court has "fast-tracked" oral arguments in the case.

The case, as we will see, stems from a FBI raid. It turns out that the agency actually got the wrong house.

The question that the Supreme Court will consider is whether the wrongly targeted family can actually bring a lawsuit against the FBI.

Background

USA Today provides the relevant background of the case.

Per the outlet:

An FBI SWAT team smashed in the front door of an Atlanta family’s home in the pre-dawn hours of an October morning in 2017, detonated a flashbang grenade and pointed guns at the adults before realizing they had raided the wrong house.

The outlet goes on to report that "the agent in charge blamed his GPS device for sending the team to a house 436 feet from the home of the violent gang member they were trying to arrest."

It is a pretty big error. Suffice it to say that the wrongly-targeted family is not too happy about this. Accordingly, they attempted to bring a lawsuit against the FBI to get compensation for the trauma that they experienced during the raid.

An appellate court, however, ruled that the family was not allowed to bring such a lawsuit.

The latest

Now, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have agreed to hear the case.

The key question in the case is whether there is a legal avenue for this family to bring this lawsuit against the FBI. The legal team representing the family claims that there is.

USA Today reports:

They argue that’s exactly what lawmakers did in 1974 in response to two raids on the wrong homes. Congress amended the Federal Tort Claims Act to specify that claims can be made against the government in various situations including false arrest and abuse of process.

The opposition - including the appellate court that ruled against the family - has come to a different conclusion, namely, that the Federal Tort Claims Act is not applicable in this situation, specifically because the action of raiding the house required a discretionary decision by law enforcement and because lawsuits for discretionary errors by law enforcement are not allowed under the act.

We'll have to see whose side the Supreme Court comes out on. Oral arguments are expected to take place soon.