Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain

542 U.S. 692 (2004)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

In 1985, an agent of the DEA, Enrique Camarena-Salazar, was captured and taken to a house in Guadalajara, where he was tortured over the course of a 2-day interrogation, then murdered. DEA officials came to believe that P, a Mexican physician, was present at the house and acted to prolong the agent's life in order to extend the interrogation and torture. A federal grand jury indicted P for the torture and murder of Camarena-Salazar and issued a warrant for his arrest. Requests and negotiations for extradition proved fruitless. The DEA approved a plan to hire Sosa (D) to seize P and bring him to the United States for trial. D abducted P from his house, held him overnight in a motel, and brought him by private plane to El Paso, Texas, where he was arrested by federal officers. The case was tried in 1992, and ended at the close of the Government's case when the District Court granted P's motion for a judgment of acquittal. P began the civil action herein. The District Court granted the Government's motion to dismiss the FTCA claim, but awarded summary judgment and $25,000 in damages to D on the ATS claim. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit then affirmed the ATS judgment but reversed the dismissal of the FTCA claim. A divided en banc court came to the same conclusion. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to clarify the scope of both the FTCA and the ATS.