MIAMI -- (AP) -- Citing a new Supreme Court decision, the Justice Department wants federal officials dropped from a lawsuit charging excessive force was used in the raid to seize Elian Gonzalez.

 Former Attorney General Janet Reno, immigration chief Doris Meissner and former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder should be dropped from the case based on a use-of-force decision issued Monday, Justice attorneys argued.

 The department wants U.S. District Judge Shelby Highsmith to reconsider an order dropping Miami police defendants but leaving the federal officials in place to fight the suit over the armed pre-dawn raid to seize the famed Cuban boy in April 2000.

 Calls to attorneys for Elian's Miami relatives, who filed the suit, were not immediately returned Friday.

 Justice is pinning its hopes for dismissal on a decision against a lawsuit by an animal rights demonstrator arrested by military police at a San Francisco appearance by
 then-Vice President Al Gore.

 Officers are justified in using more force than needed if they believe even mistakenly that someone would fight back, the court found in that case.

 In the Miami raid, law enforcement officials said they were told that ammunition had been stockpiled at a neighbor's house in case of a raid.

 Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, his wife and daughter contend government officials violated their constitutional rights by ordering the raid.

 Elian, then 6, reached the United States after his mother drowned in a boat crossing from Cuba. His Miami relatives sought to keep him, but Elian and his father returned to Cuba two months later after courts repeatedly ruled for parental custody.