Appeals court handed case of horrific wrong-family eviction

When authorities in Wilmington, Delaware, carried out an eviction order in 2021, they ignored the fact that the documents named someone other than the family living in the home.

They ignored the fact that the tenant actually showed them a current, paid-up lease.

They ignored the fact that the father, a 52-year-old blind widower, was being forced on to the streets in a snowstorm.

Along with his daughters, 11 and 17 at the time.

None of that matter.

And now the Rutherford Institute is calling on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to hold those officers responsible for their actions.

The legal team wants the officers held responsible for their “evict first, ask questions later” practice that left William Murphy and his family injured.

The lower court dismissed a lawsuit over the eviction assault after it granted a type of judicial immunity to constables “who knowingly evicted the wrong person.”

The institute also is arguing that “the eviction was an objectively unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment and that not providing proper notice and a reasonable accommodation for the blind tenant violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protections and the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

“Due process rights mean nothing when the government is allowed to sidestep those safeguards against abuse whenever convenient,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of “Battlefield America: The War on the American People.”

“By allowing government agents to operate above the law, immune from wrongdoing, we have created a situation in which the law is used as a hammer to oppress the populace, while useless in protecting us against government abuse.”

The legal team documented the case:

William Murphy, a blind, 52-year-old widower and his two daughters, aged 17 and 11, moved to Wilmington, Del., in Nov. 2020, to be closer to other family members. Murphy signed a one-year lease and received rental assistance from Social Services. The landlord complained about a delay with receiving the partial rent payment from Social Services, and in Feb. 2021, the water and electricity to the home were shut off in violation of state law. Then, on the morning of Feb. 11, during a bitterly cold snowstorm, constables arrived at the Murphy home, ordered them to vacate the premises, and gave the family 30 minutes to collect their belongings and leave. Even though the person named in the Eviction Order was someone other than Murphy, and despite Murphy showing proof of a signed lease in good standing, Murphy and his daughters were still ordered to leave the home, unable to take most of their personal possessions.

While it took only a week for a state magistrate to determine the eviction was unlawful, a subsequent civil rights lawsuit now is pending at the appeals court.

WND earlier reported that Whitehead was warning, “Increasingly, the courts have become fixated on siding with government against rather than with safeguard the rights enshrined in the Constitution.”

He has explained because the error should have been obvious, a federal civil rights complaint was filed against those responsible for tossing the family into the street.