Man held at gunpoint after officers entered wrong home challenges qualified immunity rulings

(CN) — A Texas man who was held at gunpoint by county constables after they mistakenly entered the wrong home asked a Fifth Circuit panel Wednesday to revive his civil rights lawsuit.

The case centers around an incident in 2022 where three Harris County, Texas, constables entered the wrong residence when responding to a report about suspicious activity. The constables had incorrectly been given the address of the home of plaintiff Tyler Harrington, which was across the street from the home they were supposed to be going to. The constables found that the doors to Harrington’s home were unlocked. The parties dispute whether the constables had permission to search the home from the owners of the home they believed they were at.

Harrington claims he and his wife were asleep in bed when the constables woke them up and held them at gunpoint, with Harrington wearing only underwear. He notes the incident caused him significant psychological distress.

Harrington says in his complaint that, as a lawful gun owner, he “continues to be haunted by what might have happened had he grabbed his gun in response to unannounced strangers barging into his home in the middle of the night.”

In April 2024, Senior U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt dismissed Harrington’s unlawful search and seizure and excessive force claims against two of the constables, finding they are entitled to qualified immunity. The Ronald Reagan appointee ruled the constables had acted reasonably based on the information given to them. In July 2024, Hoyt dismissed Harrington’s claims against the third constable on similar grounds.

“While the conduct of the officers was surprising, frightful, inconvenient and at times abrasive, if the plaintiff is to be believed,” Hoyt wrote, he found the constables did not violate Harrington’s constitutional rights.

But an attorney for Harrington, Alessandro Clark-Ansan, told the Fifth Circuit panel the constables acted unconstitutionally by failing to make “reasonable efforts” to confirm they were at the correct address.

Clark-Ansan said the constables entered the home twice. The first time, they found Harrington and his wife asleep in bed, and Clark-Ansan said the constables can be heard on body camera wondering aloud whether they were at the wrong home. They then exited the residence, only to reenter. Clark-Ansan also pointed out one of the constables had been called to the correct residence shortly before the incident.

“At a bare minimum, it would be an eyebrow-raising coincidence to be called back to the same street across from the same house for the same conduct,” he said.

U.S. Circuit Judges Carl Stewart and Don Willett focused on the second entry into the home, questioning what the legal basis was for the constables to reenter.

“Once they get in and see people sleeping, I mean, where does common sense creep into the calculus?” asked Stewart, a Bill Clinton appointee.

Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Brown Clement, a George W. Bush appointee, joined Stewart and Willett, a Donald Trump appointee, on the panel.

Gregory Burnett, an attorney representing the three constables, said the incident was the result of an “unfortunate mistake.” He said the constables were acting based on the information given to them by dispatch.

“The information they had leading up to that point was that there was a suspicious individual, suspicious persons around in that area,” Burnett said. “It was after midnight. The officers making those decisions, they are entitled to make split-second decisions.”

On the issue of excessive force, Burnett said it was “objectively reasonable” for the officers to have their guns drawn when they encountered individuals they believed were not supposed to be in the home and they weren’t sure whether the individuals posed a threat.

But Clark-Ansan argued this was not “a fast-moving situation in which officers needed to make a split-second decision.”

“Defendants, in their own words, had everything under control,” he said. “They had already secured the front and back exits of the home. They knew that the home that they were supposed to be responding to was unoccupied, and they had just seen the two people inside the home they incorrectly ended up in were fast asleep in bed. It was a calm situation. At that point, this court’s clear-cut precedent obligated defendants to confirm the address before reentering.”