The Texas home of Vicki Baker, inset, was destroyed in a SWAT operation, and she is fighting for the city to pay for the damages. (Photos courtesy of the Institute for Justice)
Lawyers for a woman fighting to get a Texas city to pay her nearly $60,000 for damages to her home caused by a SWAT team hunting an armed fugitive is taking her battle to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Vicki Baker is planning to file a petition to get the nation’s highest court to review her case after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined this week to rehear her case, her attorneys said.
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“The decision not to rehear Vicki’s case is certainly disappointing, but the fact that some judges dissented provides a platform to continue fighting for her constitutional rights,” said her attorney, Jeff Redfern, with the nonprofit public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice. “The Fifth Amendment requires the government to provide just compensation when it destroys private property for a public purpose, as the SWAT team did when it destroyed Vicki’s home to get a fugitive off the streets.”