ATLANTA — A family whose home was wrongfully raided by the FBI in 2017 will head back to 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday.
This comes nine months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the family can move forward with their lawsuit against the FBI and ordered the appeals court to re-examine it.
The arguments the family presents in court, on Channel 2 Action News starting at 4:00 p.m.
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Channel 2 investigative reporter Ashli Lincoln has been following Trina Martin and Toi Cliatt’s court case for years.
In October 2017, the former couple says they woke up to a flash-bang grenade. What they thought was a robbery, turned out to be an FBI raid.
“And I see about four weapons pointed directly at my head, and I’m just like, what is all this?” Claitt previously told Channel 2 Action News.
Martin’s son, Gabriel Watson, said he was terrified.
“They ran in my room pointing guns at my face,” said Watson, who was 7 years old at the time.
Exclusive body camera video shows the moments the home was raided. Agents smashed the door, detonating flashbangs and interrogated them at gunpoint.
It wasn’t until an agent double-checked the mailbox numbers that the FBI realized it was the wrong home.
“I heard the officers run out, hop in their vehicles, run to the next house, the correct house, and you just hear it all over again,” Martin said.
Martin and Cliatt filed a lawsuit against the FBI.
Historically, the federal government is immune from lawsuits. But after a series of wrong house raids in the ‘70s, laws were expanded to allow Americans to sue federal law enforcement agents.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals eventually ruled that Martin and Cliatt’s lawsuit wasn’t allowed under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. So they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, who heard their case last April.
Months later, all nine justices voted unanimously that the family is entitled to move forward with the lawsuit.
“The highest court in the land sides with you, it lets you know you’re doing the right thing” Cliatt told Lincoln.
Martin and Cliatt will now head back to federal court on Wednesday.
The 11th Circuit will hear arguments on whether the family’s claims can proceed to trial.
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