An Atlanta family who was denied damages and remedies by the federal government after armed FBI agents mistakenly raided their home in 2017 will get their case heard in the Supreme Court in April.
In the early morning hours of Oct. 18, 2017, Trina Martin, her then-7-year-old son Gabe Watson, and her ex-boyfriend Toi Cliatt were jolted awake by the sound of a flashbang grenade inside their house, indicating that a six-member squad of a SWAT team stormed the home.
The agents immediately seized Cliatt and threw him to the ground and handcuffed him while pointing guns and shouting questions. When Cliatt told them the address — 3756 Denville Trace — the unit realized they were in the wrong house.
The agents were supposed to raid a home that was just one block away on a cross street — 3741 Landau Lane — and housed a man named Joseph Riley who was the target of their warrant in a gang activity investigation, according to federal court filings from the years-long litigation.
After the team swiftly left and carried out their raid at the correct home, the lead agent returned, apologized, and left a business card for his supervisor with Cliatt.
Case filings revealed that the the lead agent used a GPS device to find the home in the dark and told Martin and Cliatt the FBI would cover damage to their home, but the agency never provided redress and damage was ultimately covered by insurance. The government also declined to compensate the family for the therapy they underwent to cope with the trauma of the raid, which spurred them to file a complaint.
Trina, Cliatt, and Gabe filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the U.S., citing the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which limits sovereign immunity protections for federal officers who commit negligent or wrongful acts and allows Americans to sue for civil wrongs committed by federal employees.
However, their suit was struck down by a judge in the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who ruled that the FTCA’s “discretionary function” exception and the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution nullified the family’s claims.
That FTCA exception shields the government from liability when a federal employee exercises discretion to advance federal policy, but attorneys from the Institute of Justice who represent the family argued that FBI agents don’t have discretion to raid the wrong home. The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause protects the enforcement of federal law.
Last October, a bipartisan group of Congress members requested the Supreme Court to reverse the 11th Circuit’s ruling, citing that the decision hinders other families in Georgia from suing the government for wrong-home raids identical to the one Trina, Cliatt, and Gabe suffered. The decision is also binding in Alabama and Florida.
“Today, victims of wrong-home raids by federal officers in Collinsville, Illinois, may sue under the FTCA, but victims of an identical raid in Collinsville, Georgia, could not,” the Congress members wrote.
The family’s legal team filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, which agreed last month to review the case.
“It’s been a long journey,” Martin told The AJC. “It’s been draining. It’s been very doubtful. So I’m just thankful. I’m looking for a really positive outcome. It’s a major milestone for me and anyone else that has experienced anything like this or possibly will in the future.”
Oral arguments in the Supreme Court will begin in late April.
“Congress amended a federal statute to ensure that victims of wrongful federal police raids have a remedy in American courts,” said IJ Senior Attorney Patrick Jaicomo. “It’s time for the Supreme Court to make it clear that the FTCA means what it says, and courts have no business carving exceptions into the statute Congress passed.”
