Summary: DEA and Lower Makefield police raided wrong home at gunpoint Family detained despite identifying correct address and non-Hispanic ethnicity Lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania A Lower Makefield, Pennsylvania, family says they were left traumatized two years ago after local and federal law enforcement executed a warrant operation at the wrong home. Robert McLaughlin alleges he and his family were asleep in their home in the 900 block of Morgan Drive on May 16, 2024 around 4:30 a.m. when authorities broke down their front door and removed them from the house at gunpoint. Nearly an hour later, though, officers learned that the suspect they were looking for lived at the house across the street from the McLaughlins. Now the family is suing over the wrong house raid. “The allegations in this complaint describe every family’s worst nightmare,” said attorney Brian Fritz, who is representing the family. Representatives for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and former Lower Makefield Police Chief Ken Coluzzi, who retired at the end of 2024, did not immediately respond to a request for comment May 14. Lower Makefield Township Manager David Kratzer declined to comment citing pending litigation. Robert McLaughlin alleges he was awakened by the sounds of banging downstairs that was so loud he didn’t bother to get dressed before going to investigate, according to the lawsuit filed May 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. As he neared the bottom of the steps, the banging grew louder and more aggressive, the lawsuit alleges. Before he could figure out what was happening, McLaughlin heard what sounded like a large blunt object hit the front door, which turned out to be a battering ram, the lawsuit alleges. “At that moment, Mr. McLaughlin was immediately overcome with fear and the realization that an intruder was attempting to break into his home,” according to the lawsuit. He allegedly immediately shouted toward the front door in an attempt to scare off the intruders. After repeated blows, the front door was splintered and Robert McLaughlin was immediately met with blinding, bright lights and assault rifles, the lawsuit said. He was forcefully pulled from his home by officers who identified themselves as DEA and Lower Makefield police. They handcuffed him and physically restrained him in his front yard. Officers then allegedly at gunpoint forced McLaughlin’s wife, Christine, the couple’s two children out of the home dressed in underwear and pajamas, and detained them as well. The chaos awakened neighbors who came outside to see McLaughlin and his family surrounded by heavily armed law enforcement officers, the lawsuit alleges. The family alleges they repeatedly identified themselves and the home address during the incident, but officers continued detaining them even after it was made apparent they were not the subject of the warrant operation, which sought a Hispanic man, Fritz said. The McLaughlins are not Hispanic. The family was released after 45 minutes only after a superior officer arrived and admitted that agents entered the wrong home, the lawsuit alleged. “At no point did defendants take reasonable steps to confirm that they were at the correct location,” Fritz said. “Instead (the McLaughlins), who were law-abiding residents asleep in their own home were subjected to a terrifying and dangerous encounter that should never have occured.” The lawsuit alleges violations of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and includes claims involving unlawful search and seizure, unlawful detention, false imprisonment, assault, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and failures involving police training, supervision, and warrant execution procedures. Crime and Courts Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at [email protected] This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: DEA, police raided Bucks home at gunpoint. Wrong address, lawsuit says Reporting by Jo Ciavaglia, Bucks County Courier Times / Bucks County Courier Times

Summary: Trump executive orders barred four major law firms from federal contracts D.C. Circuit panel included two Democratic and one Republican judge American Bar Association supported law firms against administration appeals President Donald Trump’s administration faced a skeptical federal appeals court panel on May 14 in its bid to revive the Republican leader’s executive orders punishing four major U.S. law firms, testing the scope of presidential power after judges in Washington resoundingly rejected the measures as unlawful. A law firm's commercial associations, including the lawyers it hires, are not protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, Justice Department lawyer Abhishek Kambli told a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Former Republican-appointed U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who is arguing for the law firms, countered that Trump's executive orders "strike at the heart of the First Amendment and the ability of lawyers to zealously represent their clients." COURT FOUND ORDERS VIOLATED FREE SPEECH The targeted law firms — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey — each won sweeping victories in the lower federal court, where four Democratic- and Republican-appointed judges last year separately found Trump's executive orders violated free speech and other provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Trump’s orders cited the law firms' legal work, hiring, diversity policies and political ties. The orders were part of a broader campaign led by the president since the start of his second term, targeting his perceived enemies. The executive orders sought to bar the four firms’ lawyers from accessing federal buildings and to terminate U.S. government contracts held by their clients. The orders also stripped employees of the firms of their government security clearances. The panel hearing Thursday's arguments included two Democratic-appointed judges and one Republican-appointed judge, each of whom questioned Kambli on the breadth of authority asserted by the administration. Judge Sri Srinivasan, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, pressed the Justice Department's attorney on whether Trump can revoke security clearances for reasons unrelated to their trustworthiness or ability to keep secrets. Kambli said the courts have no authority to review such decisions if the president invokes national security. "Even if it is for improper motives, it is ultimately unreviewable," Kambli said. Clement argued that prior rulings did not fully insulate the president from challenges to security clearance decisions. "You’re opening the door for a president to say that, 'I just don't think Democrats are trustworthy' or 'law firms that represent Democrats are trustworthy,' and I don't think you want to open that door," Clement said. TEST OF CONSTITUTIONAL POWER In a court filing, the Justice Department told the D.C. Circuit that the cases are "not about the sanctity of the American law firm" but rather "about lower courts encroaching on ​the constitutional power of the president" in ​the realm of national security and other ⁠matters. The targeted firms received backing from a host of legal organizations, including the American Bar Association, in urging the D.C. Circuit to reject the administration's appeals. "They were singled out because they represented clients or associated with attorneys who raised the president's ire," Clement told the appeals court. "While most cases alleging retaliation depend on either speculation or extensive discovery, here the executive orders lay the president's motives bare." Nine other firms, including Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps, settled with the Trump administration to avoid similar orders against them. The appeals court panel also heard the Trump administration’s appeal of a ruling that barred it from stripping prominent Washington lawyer Mark Zaid of his government security clearance. The D.C. Circuit's eventual rulings in both cases can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario, David Gregorio, Rod Nickel)

A conservative law firm filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday seeking to overturn a ban on conversion therapy in Wisconsin, calling the prohibition an "unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination." The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty said in a May 13 media release that the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Wisconsin-licensed counselors Terri Koschnick and Joy Buchman. “Government officials should not be allowed to police the private conversations I have with my clients who voluntarily seek out my advice as a Christian counselor," Koschnick said in the release. "They have no right to punish me for saying something they disagree with. That was again confirmed by our nation’s highest court.” Wisconsin's rule deems conversion therapy as "unprofessional conduct" for counselors, and bans them from attempting to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling. Both of the counselors provide talk therapy and integrate their Christian faith into their practice, along with their clinical training, according to the release. Koschnick lives in Oconomowoc and Buchman lives in La Crosse. The lawsuit follows a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that Colorado's ban on conversion therapy for young people infringes on the free speech rights of Christian counselors. The Supreme Court held that the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should have applied a stricter constitutional test to evaluate the state's law. The court sent the case back to the appeals court to be reconsidered under the tougher test, which it is unlikely to pass. WILL and Wisconsin Family Action argue the Chiles ruling makes Wisconsin's ban "unconstitutional and unenforceable." “Wisconsin’s rule is materially indistinguishable from Colorado’s statute held to be viewpoint discrimination by SCOTUS. When we notified the Evers administration of this fact, we were met with a blatant refusal to follow the Supreme Court holding, along with inflammatory, baseless rhetoric accusing WILL of ‘bullying’ children and Wisconsinites," said WILL Deputy Counsel Rebecca Furdek. "However, Wisconsin counselors have every right to provide Christ-centered talk therapy to the clients who seek them out for that type of counseling.” Earlier this month, Evers rejected a demand from WILL and WFA that the state stop enforcing its ban on the widely discredited practice through which counselors instruct LGBTQ+ patients to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. In his response, Evers said in a letter he was disappointed the groups "wasted no time enthusiastically taking up the mantle to restore a long-disavowed and outdated practice that decades of scientific and medical research has demonstrated is, at best, ineffective and, at worst, dangerous." Evers said that the Supreme Court's decision "intentionally — and specifically — stopped short of striking down any applications of Colorado’s law," and said that repealing Wisconsin's rule before the the Denver appeals court reconsiders the case "would be premature." The governor also noted the Colorado case specifically addresses the counselor's talk therapy practice. "Like Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, covers much more than just talk therapy, and so it undoubtedly continues to have many valid applications," he wrote. A spokesperson for Evers referred reporters back to the comments in his letter from earlier this month when asked for comment on the lawsuit. Wisconsin's conversion therapy ban has withstood legal challenges at the state level. Evers sued lawmakers last year over whether a Republican-controlled legislative committee acted unconstitutionally when it blocked his administration's rule. In a 4-3 ruling last summer, the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court limited the ability of the Legislature's powerful Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules to block regulations issued by the executive branch and, in doing so, allowed the conversion therapy ban to stay in place. More than a dozen major mental health and medical organizations, including the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association, have renounced conversion therapy as ineffective and harmful. Laura Schulte can be reached at [email protected] and on X @SchulteLaura. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Law firm WILL sues to overturn Wisconsin's conversion therapy ban Reporting by Laura Schulte, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect