Supreme Court seems likely to rule narrowly for family whose house was wrongly raided by FBI

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed likely Tuesday to rule narrowly in favor of a family trying to hold federal law enforcement accountable in court after an FBI raid wrongly targeted their Atlanta home.

The justices seemed open to giving them another chance to sue over the raid, but wary of handing down a more sweeping ruling on federal liability in law enforcement cases.

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.

But the man the FBI was looking for lived four doors away, in a home with similar features.

The case was filed after FBI agents broke down Trina Martin's door before dawn in 2017. They pointed guns at Martin and her then-boyfriend, Hilliard Toi Cliatt, and terrified her 7-year-old son before realizing they were in the wrong place.

The FBI team quickly apologized and left, with the leader later saying that his personal GPS device had led him to the wrong place.

The federal government is generally shielded from legal liability, and lower courts dismissed the lawsuit brought by Cliatt and Martin.

The government says judges shouldn’t be second-guessing decisions made in the absence of a specific policy and Martin can’t sue over an honest mistake. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, tossing out the lawsuit in 2022.

Both liberal and conservative justices appeared skeptical of the government's position, with Justice Neil Gorsuch asking incredulously, “No policy says, ‘Don’t break down the door of the wrong house? Don't traumatize its occupants?'”

Still, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was among those who suggested there could be some situations where law enforcement decisions should be shielded from liability, though “perhaps not here.”

The justices seemed to be leaning toward tossing out part of the 11th Circuit’s decision and sending it back for more litigation. A decision is expected around the end of June.

Public interest groups from across the political spectrum have urged the court to overturn the ruling, saying it differs from other courts around the country and its reasoning would severely narrow the legal path for people to try and hold federal law enforcement accountable in court.

• The Washington Post contributed.