Wrong House Raid: Will FBI Be Held Liable for Damages by SCOTUS in Martin?

Posted on May 24, 2025 by Michael Lowe.

The increasing reliance on technology as well as mistakes in identifying the proper person before taking action by law enforcement are two growing concerns for more false arrests and even false imprisonment from the perspective of criminal defense attorneys.

Right now, SCOTUS is considering a significant case rooted in civil injury law but with resounding criminal defense applications in Martin v. United States, No. 24-362 (2025). The petition for writ of certiorari was granted on January 27, 2025; oral argument was heard on April 29, 2025 (read it here).

Why is this important? The High Court is being asked to define the boundaries of the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”) and whether or not the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) can be sued for monetary damages after a “wrong-house raid.”

Backstory: Here’s What Happened in Martin

The story begins in Atlanta, Georgia. In October 2015, the FBI got a warrant and went out to conduct a search and seizure at the home of a man named Joseph Riley, alleged to be a violent gang member. Seven FBI agents hit the streets, warrant in hand, with an address clearly identifying Riley’s home.

They moved out in the “pre-dawn hours.”

They didn’t go there. Instead, they hit the home where Curtrina Martin and her 7-year-old boy lived with her partner Hilliard Toi Cliatt. Their home is around a block away from Riley’s house. As the 11^th Circuit explained, the two houses “shared similar conspicuous features.”

The two addresses: Riley’s address (as shown on the warrant) was 3756 Denville Trace, SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30331. The Martin home is located at 3741 Landau Lane, SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30331.

It was a no-knock search warrant. The appellate court confirmed these are “high risk warrants.”

No-knocks are court orders giving law enforcement the legal right to bust into someone’s home without warning (no knocking, no ringing the doorbell, no identification of themselves as police, etc.). They are controversial, but allowed in “exigent circumstances.” Read, “Authority of Federal Judges and Magistrates to Issue “No-Knock Warrants”,” Opinion of the U.S. Department of Justice, June 12, 2022.

So what happened? Details in the appellate opinion describe something many of us can relate to all too well: apparently, in their pre-raid preparations, they took photos of Riley’s house in the daylight but when the time came for the actual three o’clock in the morning raid itself, they relied upon GPS to direct them to Riley’s house.

The GPS technology took them to Martin’s home. Not Riley’s house. Mistakes were made.

It’s really early on a dark Wednesday morning, and seven SWAT officers along with police officers from the Atlanta Police Department (it took a “caravan of vehicles” to get there), all dressed in “full tactical gear” and “armed with rifles and handguns” stormed the wrong residence. They deployed a “flashbang at the entrance of the home” as the SWAT team came inside.

Note: flashbangs are also known as stun grenades or concussion grenades. They make a huge noise while emitting a simulataneous bright light as a distraction. They are not intended to harm, but to disorient the target and allow apprehension without hurting anyone. See, “What Does a Stun/Concussion Grenade Do?”, published by SOFREP on October 19, 2022.

Cliatt thought they were being burglarized. He and Martin hid in a closet. SWAT “dragged Cliatt out of the closet and onto the bedroom floor with guns pointed at him, and handcuffed him.” As for Ms. Martin, another SWAT team member “pointed a gun in her face while yelling at her to keep her hands up.” Her son was in his bedroom.

The Agent in Charge then came into the room and realized that Cliatt was not Riley. Another agent saw that some mail in the house had a different address than the one on their warrant. They stopped. They left.

The FBI and APD then went over to the right house, and arrested Riley. The Agent in Charge returned to the Martin home, “apologized to them, documented the damages caused by the mistaken raid, provided them with contact information for his supervisor, and advised them that the FBI would handle the damage repairs.”

Surprising to no one, a lawsuit followed. The Petitioners initiated an action against FBI special agent Lawrence Guerra, and six unnamed agents and the United States pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971) under the FTCA, alleging that the FBI agents (1) violated their Fourth Amendment rights; and (2) were also liable for damages under Georgia tort law. Specifically, they brought state law claims for negligence; negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress; trespass and interference with private property; false arrest and false imprisonment; and assault and battery.

The Eleventh Circuit denied them their claims, so they petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States. We’re waiting for SCOTUS’s decision now.

What is the FTCA?

In 1946, Congress passed the Federal Tort Claims Act in order to address injustices with the longstanding rule of law that the federal government cannot be sued for monetary damages by private parties, because any judgment would be paid in taxpayer dollars. This is the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

The FTCA waives the federal government’s sovereign immunity defense, and permits lawsuits to proceed against it for certain tort claims “…in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances.” 28 U.S.C. §2674. The Act specifically allows private persons to file lawsuits against the federal government seeking damages when one of its employees (like an FBI agent) commits a civil wrong as defined by law, while acting within the scope of their employment.

However, the FTCA does not take away the immunity doctrine. Within the FTCA are specific exceptions to its application allowing removal of the shield of sovereign immunity. These exceptions are found in 28 USC §2680.

FTCA Law Enforcement Discretion Exception in 2680(a)

As stated in 28 USC §2680(a), the FTCA provisions shall not apply to:

Any claim based upon an act or omission of an employee of the Government, exercising due care, in the execution of a statute or regulation, whether or not such statute or regulation be valid, or based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused.

This is an exception to the FTCA that the government almost always wins with, known as the “law enforcement discretion exception.” Under 28 USC §2680(a), the FTCA cannot be used to sue the government for monetary recompense when discretion is involved in the agent’s actions or failures to act within the job. All too often, courts have found that this means that the government retains immunity.

One Harvard Law Review article estimates this occurs around 75% of the time. A percentage that experienced federal criminal defense attorneys find to be a shocking red flag. See, “Recovering the Lost Meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act’s “Discretionary Function Exception,” Harv. L. Rev. 138 (2), 654–675 (2024), explaining (footnotes omitted):

Congress meant something specific when it wrote the discretionary function exception into the Act. One just needs to know where to look to discern its meaning. The Supreme Court has long instructed that the FTCA was “designed to build upon” the common law that developed in the context of tort suits for officer wrongs. That common law backdrop serves as a critical guide to understanding the meaning of this enigmatic exception. Once one understands that “discretion,” properly constructed in light of its common law meaning, refers to “constitutionally permissible discretion,” the exact boundaries of the exception become clearer. Though the discretionary function exception has been interpreted to retain the government’s immunity in a breathtaking swath of cases, the proper interpretation suggests its reach should not extend to a potentially large category of cases — those in which plaintiffs can successfully plead that a constitutional violation preserves the court’s jurisdiction to hear their FTCA case.

If an FTCA exception is found to apply to the matter, then the plaintiff’s claims are barred. It is held that the federal court has no subject matter jurisdiction over the case. Campos v. United States, 888 F.3d 724, 730-31 (5th Cir. 2018) cert. denied (2019).

FTCA Law Enforcement Proviso in 2680(h)

As stated in 28 USC §2680(h), the FTCA also includes what is referenced as the “law enforcement proviso,” which states:

Any claim arising out of assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or interference with contract rights: Provided, That, with regard to acts or omissions of investigative or law enforcement officers of the United States Government, the provisions of this chapter and section 1346(b) of this title shall apply to any claim arising, on or after the date of the enactment of this proviso, out of assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process, or malicious prosecution. For the purpose of this subsection, “investigative or law enforcement officer” means any officer of the United States who is empowered by law to execute searches, to seize evidence, or to make arrests for violations of Federal law.

This FTCA exception keeps sovereign immunity for some tort claims, but it does allow civil claims to proceed with the immunity waived if the lawsuit is based on “…[a]ny claim arising out of assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or interference with contract rights.”

This portion of Section 2680(h) has come to be known within the case law and practitioners as the “law enforcement proviso.” Campos, 888 F.3d at 730, citing Tsolmon v. United States, 841 F.3d 378, 381 (5th Cir. 2016).

Key here: does the proviso allow for the civil injury claims to proceed against the federal government based upon the wrong house raid suffered by Ms. Martin, her son, and her partner, despite the discretionary function exception?

The Interplay between the Law Enforcement Proviso and the Discretionary Function Exception

In Martin, the petitioners argue that the discretionary function exception (“DFE”) “is categorically inapplicable to claims arising out of the law-enforcement proviso (“LEP”).” No way does the DFE block their claims because of the proviso, they argue.

Why? Because: (A) claims based on discretionary functions do not arise out of the law-enforcement proviso, since (i) the exception does not reach intentional torts like those the proviso permits, and (ii) the lower courts’ expansion of the exception creates needless conflict with the proviso; and (B) if the DFE and LEP conflict, the proviso prevails. Also, they argue that the Supremacy Clause does not bar FTCA claims because the FTCA is a federal statute.

The DOJ disagrees, of course. The government counters that, among other things, SCOTUS has given a two-part test for DFE in United States v. Gaubert, 499 U.S. 315, 322-323 (1991), and that the FBI agent in Martin meets the Gaubert standard. The two considerations are if the challenged conduct was “discretionary in nature,’ in that it involved “ ‘an element of judgment or choice.’ ” Id. at 322.

If the agent has no “rightful option but to adhere to the directive,” according to law then it is not a discretionary act. Ibid. (quoting Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531, 536 (1988)).

Second, the government argues that a court must evaluate “…whether that judgment is of the kind that the discretionary function exception was designed to shield,” Id. at 322-323 (quoting Berkovitz, 486 U.S. at 536), meaning it is “susceptible to policy analysis.” Id. at 325.

In reply, the Petitioners point out that, citing Gaubert at 323, the DFE protects only “legislative and administrative decisions grounded in social, economic, and political policy[.]” SCOTUS’s precedent therefore “categorically excludes intentional torts committed by law-enforcement officers.”

This reading of the two FTCA provisions, they continue, permits SCOTUS to “…harmonize the discretionary-function exception and the law-enforcement proviso by applying its precedent and answering only the questions presented.”

And, even if the two provisions are read to conflict, then the LEP should prevail, because this reading “… honors the text Congress enacted and ensures that the 1974 amendment to the FTCA is not eviscerated in its core applications—like when federal officers raid the wrong house.”

As a friend of the court, Professor Gregory Sisk filed a brief in support of the Petitioners’ stance. Sisk is well-respected in the FTCA and applications of these exceptions in particular; e.g., he is referenced as authority in the above Harvard Law Review article on the subject. 138 Harv. L. Rev. at 654.

Professor Sisk points out that “discretionary function” is a legal term of art adopted by Congress. He urges that it does not allow the FBI and the DOJ to expand the DFE to cover “ordinary governmental neglect.” He points out that “[a]t bottom, delinquency in attention to a matter is not the ‘failure to exercise’ a ‘discretionary function.’ Rather, simple neglect is the absence of a ‘discretionary function’ ….” Brief of Professor Gregory C. Sisk as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioners, pages 21-22.

Remember, the cornerstone of this case is an FBI agent relying upon GPS technology – which we all have experienced to make mistakes – in orchestrating a SWAT team entry complete with flashbangs with agents in full tactical gear alongside numerous Atlanta police officers.

Defense: Law Enforcement Mistakes and Reliance on Technology

Hopefully, in Martin, SCOTUS will clarify the FTCA and how these two statutory exceptions work with each other, especially in the dealings of federal law enforcement including FBI agents and federal SWAT teams. While this is a civil matter, where the petitioners are trying to pursue injury claims under Georgia state law and money damage awards from the federal government, it deserves monitoring by the federal criminal defense bar.

Of note, from a criminal defense standpoint, are two points brought before SCOTUS in the amicus brief filed in Martin by the North Central Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association (NCPTLA). They point out that this case involves a mistake of identity. The FBI targeted the wrong house.

1. Even reasonable mistakes by law enforcement can cause catastrophic harm.

The NCPTLA reminds us that law enforcement is known for making serious errors where innocent people are hurt. Maybe the mistakes are reasonable, but nevertheless devastating. Examples they have given include people with the same name as an alleged wrongdoer being arrested. “[W]here courts have routinely permitted claims against law enforcement officers, it is where law enforcement reasonably could have and should have done more to investigate before arresting.” NCPTLA Brief, page 4.

Mistakes of identity when it involves law enforcement have serious ramifications. Not only can there be wrongful arrests, but innocent people can be detained, incarcerated, or even deported. Targeting the wrong person for investigation or arrest is a serious criminal defense concern.

2. Increasing reliance on technology by law enforcement is likely to increase mistakes being made.

Furthermore, there is an increasing reliance, even dependence, by law enforcement upon technology, including AI facial recognition. This is deemed worrisome, and forecast to increase the likelihood of mistakes being made and innocents being victimized. NCPTLA Brief, page 9-10.

For criminal defense attorneys, the ever-increasing infatuation with technology in criminal investigations is alarming.

For more, read our earlier discussions regarding technology and law enforcement, see:

For more on when law enforcement is allowed to search your home, see:

Finally, read our earlier in-depth articles where civil claims and criminal defense dovetail:

Also see: Svendsen, Christopher L. “Deficiencies in the Federal Tort Claims Act” Law Enforcement Proviso” and the Need for Reform.” Iowa L. Rev. 107 (2021): 1857; and Wang, Eric. “Tortious constructions: Holding federal law enforcement accountable by applying the FTCA’s law enforcement proviso over the discretionary function exception.” NYUL Rev. 95 (2020): 1943.

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For more information, check out our web resources, read Michael Lowe’s Case Results, and read “The Early Part of a Texas Criminal Case in State or Federal Court.”

Posted on May 24, 2025 by Michael Lowe , on Arrest and Indictment, Federal Government Watch, InDepth Articles, Orwellian Threats to Rights, Search and Seizures, Wrongfully Accused

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