Former Attorney General John Ashcroft will have his day before the Supreme Court to stave off a civil suit filed by a man picked up by federal agents and held against his will.

The justices announced Monday they will hear Ashcoft’s appeal claiming he should be immune from a lawsuit brought by a Kansas native who claims his Fourth Amendment rights were violated in 2003 when he was stopped from leaving the country and held in custody for more than two weeks.

Abdullah al-Kidd says Ashcroft’s leadership of the Bush Justice Department following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks led to an unconstitutional practice of using material witness laws as a pretext for arresting and detaining suspects without probable cause.

Lower courts, including the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, have ruled that Ashcroft is ineligible for the legal immunity normally offered to high-ranking government officials for actions that fall within their official duties.

The justices offered no explanation for their decision to take the case which will be heard until next year. Justice Elena Kagan has recused from the case.

The Obama Administration is representing Ashcroft and asked the high court to take the case arguing that if the former Attorney General is forced into a courtroom it will “substantially chill officers in the exercise of important governmental functions.”

In 2003, federal investigators were supposedly interested in another man, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, who was suspected of funneling money to a radical Islamic group. Agents used a material witness order to nab al-Kidd and said his testimony was crucial to the Al-Hussayen case.

In securing the warrant, a pair FBI agents told a federal judge that al-Kidd was on a one-way flight to Saudi Arabia. This was incorrect. al-Kidd purchased a round-trip ticket, had family in the United States and even helped the FBI in other investigations. This information was not part of the material witness warrant which is only supposed to be used in extraordinary events to secure witness testimony.

al-Kidd spent 16 days behind bars and was never charged with a crime. He was also never called to testify against Al-Hussayen who wasn’t convicted.

ACLU lawyers representing al-Kidd asked the justices to leave the lower court rulings in place and force Ashcroft to explain his department’s use of the material witness warrants. It is alleged that the federal agents in al-Kidd’s were not acting as wild cowboys but rather in accordance with Justice Department practices. “That policy used the material witness statute as cover to detain and investigate suspects for whom the government lacked probable cause of wrongdoing,” lawyer Lee Gelernt wrote to the court.