Are there any remedies for abusive or insulting behavior by agents executing a search warrant?

Question

Suppose I am a particular person who maintains a clean and orderly residence. I have a sign inside my front door asking visitors to put booties over their shoes before entry. Now some LEOs show up with a search warrant for the residence. Is there any obligation for them to respect my property and order? For example, it would not hinder their search to wear booties over their shoes while indoors. Or to wear gloves while rifling through my drawers. It might take some extra time, but if they were respectful they could carefully remove the contents and return them in substantially the same order as originally found.

What I have heard is that the reality is agents are usually careless, and often abusive in executing searches: E.g., they don't just look through drawers, but if they're in a foul mood they dump their contents on the floor and then stomp through them. They may even use this to threaten the occupants: e.g., "Tell us where X is or we'll make this messy." The only legal requirement I am aware of is that they "reasonably" secure the premises before leaving, meaning that if they broke down an exterior door or window they have to board it up.

One real-world example I recently reviewed was featured in Wired: An interagency task force with a no-knock warrant broke down an unlocked door and, before they were done, thought it amusing to leave a dildo they found propped conspicuously on a bed.

In practice are there any restraints on such misbehavior in the execution of warranted searches? Are there routine remedies for damage incurred in the course of a search? And do any remedies exist for non-material damages – e.g., insult to the dignity or property searched as suggested at the beginning of this question?

Answer 1

There are two separate questions here, it seems to me.

First: are law enforcement officers required to respect your house rules and avoid making a mess? At least in the United States, the answer is unequivocally no. If the only "damage" suffered is that you need to sweep the floor, or put your clothes back in drawers, that's not the police's problem. You have not suffered any damages that a court is going to reimburse, and your best case scenario, even if you win a suit against the police, is an award of one dollar as nominal damages.

Second: are law enforcement officers required to reimburse you for any physical damage they caused while executing the search warrant?

The answer here is tricker, and depends on the search warrant.

If the warrant is invalid, then the answer is yes. But remember: just because, for example, the cops are looking for the guy you bought your house from, who moved out a month ago, that doesn't mean the warrant is "invalid." Just because the cops got a bad tip, or suspected you wrongly, or were in some other way wasting their time--as long as the warrant is technically proper and they were able to convince a judge it was reasonable, the warrant is valid. Even if the warrant is invalid, you may need to sue the police to get anything reimbursed.

If the warrant is valid, in practical terms, you will almost certainly need to sue the police to recover anything, and you will have to show the Court that the police's actions that damaged your property were so extreme that they were outside the reasonable scope of the warrant. For instance: the warrant is for a large item, like a stolen car: the police cannot smash holes in your walls to make sure the car isn't hidden inside. If they're looking for drugs, they may be able to.

If the officers' actions are consistent with the scope of the warrant, then you are not going to recover anything. The warrant is, basically, permission from a judge to enter your home and perform those actions, and they will not be liable for them.

A number of relevant cases are discussed in this article: http://www.aele.org/law/2010all01/2010-1MLJ101.pdf

Answer 2

TL;DR: No. But maybe there should be.

Here is a Law Review article addressing the sub-question: Does the Fifth Amendment Mandate Compensation When Property is Damaged During the Course of Police Activities?

The author concludes that in practice the remedies offered seem to fall short of the Constitutional mandate:

The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, along with similar provisions in state constitutions, forbids the taking of private property by the government for a public use without just compensation. Despite this protection, many courts have denied takings claims made by innocent third party landowners when police officers caused damage to their property during the course of executing their official duties. These courts held that the damage was not for a "public use" in the narrow sense, and have refused to analyze the claims under takings jurisprudence. This narrow view of "public use" ignores the fact that society as a whole benefits from the police activity, including any resulting damage to property, while the innocent, individual owner alone is forced to bear the burden. This Note argues that a broader interpretation of "public use" is required to redistribute justly and fairly the costs of such burdens to the society that benefits from them in order to comport with the mandate of the Fifth Amendment.