On The Front Lines
SCOTUS Inaction on Botched SWAT Raid Coupled with Trump’s Push for Greater Police Immunity Could Usher In a New Era of Lawless Policing & Brutality
WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hold a SWAT team leader accountable for raiding the wrong house, wrecking the wrong home, and terrorizing an innocent family.
The Rutherford Institute is warning that the Court’s decision not to hear the appeal in Jimerson v. Lewis, coupled with President Trump’s call for a new crime bill that would further insulate police from liability, accountability and charges of official misconduct, could usher in a new era of police brutality, lawlessness and the reckless deployment of lethal force on unarmed civilians. In the 30 years since the first Crime Bill fueled the militarization of police, SWAT teams continue to terrorize innocent homeowners and then receive qualified immunity from the courts.
“The Supreme Court continues to send the message that in the American police state, ‘we the people’ are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the people they were appointed to ‘serve and protect,’” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Make no mistake that the real purpose of qualified immunity is to rig the system, ensuring that abusive agents of the government almost always win and the victims of government abuse almost always lose.”
In declining to hear an appeal in Jimerson v. Lewis, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed qualified immunity to stand for a SWAT team commander of the Waxahachie Police Department in Texas who, in the process of executing a search warrant on a suspected methamphetamine stash house, recklessly led his team to the wrong home, where Karen Jimerson and James Parks were having their three young children get ready for bed. The SWAT commander had failed to match the house’s street address number with a search warrant and ignored other obvious differences between the houses. For instance, unlike the photos of the target house, Jimerson’s home had no fence and had a wheelchair ramp. Despite these differences and being unable to see the house number, the commander led officers to Jimerson’s house where they deployed a flashbang, broke the front windows, and breached the door. The officers began a protective sweep and told two females to get on the ground before realizing it was the wrong house. An internal police department investigation determined that “reasonable and normal protocol was completely overlooked.”
The family filed a federal lawsuit, alleging a Fourth Amendment violation for the wrongful raid of their home. Although the district court would have let the case proceed, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that even though the commander’s efforts to identify the correct residence were “deficient,” the commander was entitled to qualified immunity from the lawsuit. The Rutherford Institute’s amicus brief, which called on the Supreme Court to hear the case, argued that police who clearly violate the Fourth Amendment by failing to follow the commands of a search warrant and instead invade an innocent third-party’s home should not be entitled to qualified immunity. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson disagreed with the majority’s refusal to hear the case.
Erin Glenn Busby, Lisa R. Eskow, and Michael F. Sturley with the University of Texas School of Law Supreme Court Clinic advanced the arguments in the Jimerson v. Lewis amicus brief.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, defends individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
Case History
