Idaho woman who says police destroyed her home takes case to U.S. Supreme Court
A Canyon County woman asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to rule whether police acted appropriately when they threw tear gas into her home and destroyed her belongings while they were searching for her ex-boyfriend.
The question posed by Shaniz West is whether an officer who has consent to “get inside” her house, but instead destroys it from the outside, is entitled to qualified immunity, according to a copy of the petition to the court, filed by the Institute for Justice.
West’s case began in 2014, when Caldwell Police damaged her property during a 10-hour standoff. Police thought an armed suspect was in the house, but the only occupant was her dog, Blue.
The Idaho Statesman previously reported that West found Caldwell police officers in her yard during a search for her ex-boyfriend, Fabian Salinas. She said she gave police her house keys and gave them permission to enter the house and arrest Salinas, whom she thought might be inside.
Salinas had reportedly come by to pick up belongings as she was leaving to take her son to school registration, but she told him to be gone by the time she came back, the initial lawsuit said.
Police caught Salinas in Meridian about a week after the standoff, according to previous reports.
“With her life in shambles, her personal property either destroyed or coated in a toxic film leftover from the tear gas, Shaniz — who was left homeless for months following the siege — sued to challenge the warrantless destruction of her home and property,” according to a press release from the Institute for Justice on Thursday. “The officers defended their actions by claiming that they didn’t need a warrant because Shaniz had given them consent to go into the home.”
A judge sided with the police, and the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit later found that “no Supreme Court or Ninth Circuit case clearly established, as of August 2014, that Defendants exceeded the scope of consent,” according to the Institute for Justice. The finding triggered the U.S. Supreme Court petition.
“Qualified immunity means that government officials can get away with violating your rights as long as they violate them in a way nobody thought of before,” attorney Joshua Windham said in a news release. “Government officials are not above the law, and if citizens must follow the law, the government must follow the Constitution — that includes being held accountable for violating it.”
The Institute of Justice, which bills itself as a nonprofit, libertarian, public interest law firm, says that’s why West has asked the Supreme Court to hear her case and establish whether “qualified immunity” can be used to allow government officials to violate constitutional rights with impunity.
