By Ann E. Marimow · The Washington Post (c) 2025
In the predawn hours, a team of masked FBI agents armed with rifles battered down the door of an Atlanta home, detonated a stun grenade and rushed inside in search of a gang member.
Agents handcuffed Hilliard Toi Cliatt and pointed a gun at both Cliatt and his then-partner, Curtrina Martin, while her 7-year-old son cowered in his bedroom.
But the man the FBI was looking for lived four doors away, in a home with similar features.
The federal government is generally shielded from legal liability, and lower courts dismissed the lawsuit brought by Cliatt and Martin.
On Tuesday, Supreme Court justices from across the ideological spectrum weresympathetic to those affected by such wrong-house raids. But during oral arguments, a majority seemed wary of usingthe case to clarify when law enforcement officials can be held accountable for their mistakes.
Conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not seem convinced when the government’s attorney suggested that the federal agents had made a “reasonable mistake” when they stormed the wrong house in suburban Atlanta.
“You might look at the address before you knock down the door,” Gorsuch said. “How about making sure you’re on the right street?” he added. “Is that, you know, asking too much?”
But Gorsuch and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh suggested the court could send the case back to the appeals court to reconsider its decision that the lawsuit could not go forward – a step the lawyer for Cliatt and Martin said would still leave them “fighting to get a day in court.”
Attorney Patrick M. Jaicomo said the Supreme Court should instead reverse the lower court ruling and allow the lawsuit to proceed. Congress intentionally changed the law to create an exception to the government’s immunity for just this type of conduct by law enforcement officers, he said, and to “make sure that there’s a remedy for the innocent victims of your mistake or wrongdoing.”
The Trump administration defended the agents, saying Congress also intended to protect law enforcement from liability claims that second-guess their judgment calls in the course of their duties. Frederick Liu, an assistant to the solicitor general, told the justices that the agents in this case had discretion as to how to identify the target of a search warrant.
During the errant 2017 raid, the FBI spent no more than five minutes inside the home Martin and Cliatt shared. But the dramatic, noisy entry made them think they were being attacked by criminals. Agents dragged Cliatt out of a bedroom closet, handcuffed him and pointed their guns at the couple, according to court filings. Martin pleaded with the agents to see her son, Gabe.
When Cliatt stated his address in response to an agent’s questions, the lead FBI agent, Lawrence Guerra, realized his error and called off the raid, court records show. Cliatt was uncuffed, and the agent said he would return soon to explain what had happened.
Guerra came back, apologized and documented the property damage, which was eventually covered by insurance. He handed Cliatt a business card with his supervisor’s information and left the couple in stunned disbelief, court documents state.
When the government turned down their requests for compensation, the couple sued for damages for false imprisonment and arrest, trespass and negligence, among other claims.
At issue in the case is the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows individuals to bring some claims for damages for certain actions taken by federal employees that lead to personal injury or property damage. But the statute includes an exception to give federal officers leeway to carry out their jobs.
The victims have bipartisan support from members of Congress, including Sens. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Raphael G. Warnock (D-Georgia). The lawmakers emphasized that the tort claims act was amended in 1974 in response to high-profile wrong-house raids. It is supposed to allow for claims when law enforcement officers commit “assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process, or malicious prosecution.”
The justices wrestled Tuesday with how broadly that provision applies when lower courts are deciding whether a lawsuit against federal law enforcement officials can proceed. Sotomayor reacted skeptically when Liu said the provision removes one broad layer of protection for officers but doesn’t totally foreclose such lawsuits.
“That is so ridiculous,” she said, alluding to a botched raid in Collinsville, Illinois, in 1973 that helped prompt changes in the law. “Congress is looking at the Collinsville raid and providing a remedy to people who have been wrongfully raided, and you’re now saying, no, they really didn’t want to protect them fully.”
The victims’ attorney told the justices that sending the case back to the appeals court, where the judges could reconsider the circumstances for allowing such lawsuits, “will also implicitly be saying that the exact sort of case that Congress amended this act to allow is going to be doomed.”
A district judge in Atlanta said the agent in the botched raid, and the government, were shielded from liability. The court said Guerra had taken significant precautions in preparing for the raid and had “simply made a mistake.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, also sided with the government. Martin’s lawsuit was barred in part, the court said, because the FBI did not have specific policies or procedures for how an agent should execute a warrant.
The 11th Circuit separately said the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution bars such claims because states cannot interfere with federal officers carrying out federal policy – a rationale the justices seemed prepared to reject.
A decision in the case known as Martin v. United States is expected by late June.