The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 29 over whether the FBI should be protected from a civil suit over its mistaken raiding of a Georgia couple’s home in 2017.
In the early morning hours of Oct. 18, 2017, FBI Special Agent Lawrence Guerra mistakenly believed he had arrived at a gang member’s home to execute a search warrant. Instead, he smashed through the door of a different home—that of Hilliard Toi Cliatt and his partner, Curtrina Martin.
Although Guerra had conducted a pre-dawn drive-by in preparation, court filings state that the GPS directed them to a different home. The address of Cliatt and Martin’s home was not on the house itself but was instead on the mailbox and “is not visible from the street,” according to the Justice Department’s filing.
During oral argument on April 29, the Supreme Court weighed whether Martin and Cliatt should be able to sue the government. A law known as the Federal Tort Claims Act generally allows individuals to sue the government for certain acts, such as assault, false arrest, or abuse of process. It includes an exception, however, for legal claims involving the government’s discretion in performing a particular duty or function.
This was the caveat the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit cited in refusing to allow the couple’s lawsuit to proceed. Martin and Cliatt, however, pointed to a provision added to the law in 1974 after mistaken raids in Collinsville, Illinois. That provision allowed legal arguments by plaintiffs based on “acts or omissions of investigative or law enforcement officers of the United States Government.”
The justices’ line of questioning on April 29 indicated they would remand the case to the appeals court with a narrow win for the couple that entailed more consideration by another judge.
At one point, Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed incredulous at some of the comments made by Assistant to the Solicitor General Frederick Liu, who suggested that the FBI agents’ mistakes were protected as an attempt to exercise discretion. Liu argued that because there was no specific policy directing the FBI agent not to search a house other than the suspect’s, he retained some level of legal protection.
“No policy says don’t break down the wrong ... door of a house ... don’t traumatize its occupants? Really?” Gorsuch asked.
Liu said that although the United States’ policy “of course” is to execute warrants at the correct house, “stating the policy at that high level of generality doesn’t foreclose or prescribe any particular action and how an officer goes about identifying the right house.” He went on to suggest that officers may need to consider things such as public safety and efficiency when determining whether to take an “extra precaution” to ensure they’re at the right house.
Gorsuch interjected, saying, “You might look at the address of the house before you knock down the door.”
“Yes,” Liu responded, and he added, “That sort of decision is filled with policy tradeoffs.”
Gorsch interrupted, asking, “Really?”
After Liu said that checking the house number at the end of the driveway could expose agents to potential lines of fire, Gorsuch asked, “How about making sure you’re on the right street ... checking the street sign? Is that too much?”
Liu told Justice Sonia Sotomayor that the 1974 addition removed one layer of protection for officers but allowed another layer to stay in place.
“That is so ridiculous,” Sotomayor said. “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.”
