[tattoopierced1]

CNN.com - Police don't have to knock, justices say - Jun 15, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices.

The 5-4 ruling clearly signals the court's conservative shift following the departure of moderate Sandra Day O'Connor.

The case tested previous court rulings that police armed with warrants generally must knock and announce themselves or they run afoul of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said Detroit police acknowledge violating that rule when they called out their presence at a man's door then went inside three seconds to five seconds later.

"Whether that preliminary misstep had occurred or not, the police would have executed the warrant they had obtained, and would have discovered the gun and drugs inside the house," Scalia wrote.

But suppressing evidence is too high of a penalty, Scalia said, for errors by police in failing to properly announce themselves.

The outcome might have been different if O'Connor were still on the bench. She seemed ready, when the case was first argued in January, to rule in favor of Booker Hudson, whose house was searched in 1998.

O'Connor had worried aloud that officers around the country might start bursting into homes to execute search warrants. She asked: "Is there no policy of protecting the home owner a little bit and the sanctity of the home from this immediate entry?"

She retired before the case was decided, and a new argument was held so that Justice Samuel Alito could participate in deliberations. Alito and Bush's other Supreme Court pick, Chief Justice John Roberts, both supported Scalia's opinion.

Hudson's lawyers argued that evidence against him was connected to the improper search and could not be used against him.

Scalia said that a victory for Hudson would have given "a get-out-of-jail-free card" to him and others.

In a dissent, four justices complained that the decision erases more than 90 years of Supreme Court precedent.

"It weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for himself and the three other liberal members.

Breyer said that police will feel free to enter homes without knocking and waiting a short time if they know that there is no punishment for it.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a moderate, joined the conservatives in most of the ruling. He wrote his own opinion, however, to say "it bears repeating that it is a serious matter if law enforcement officers violate the sanctity of the home by ignoring the requisites of lawful entry."

[Jayhawkk]

It's stupid to knock before entering a home where you have gained legal judge ordered search abilities. If people are worried about crooked cops then the law before hand wouldn't of stopped anything.

This is for officer safety to not have to announce themselves and location prior to entering a place that is dangerous. You're not going to be seeing this for every warrant out there.

[Dr Liftalot]

I disagree, i think its a good thing if they knock there are plenty of warents issiued and sometimes they get the wrong residency(or just a spelling error causes them to go to the wrong home) without any warning swarming a place on a small search warrent when the resident would have clearly let them in without the distruction of property and trama.

( i remeber seeing a cops where they broke into the wrong house threw the husband and wife down infront of there kids, (they knocked once it was 3 am in the mornin) didnt bother to wait and smashed the door down and tramatised a inacent family they realized this after laying the smack down of a lifetime on the husband who was just yelling what are you doing stop stop?! my kids!

If they had just allowed him to get to the door none of that would have happen.

[yeahright]

Originally Posted by Jayhawkk

It's stupid to knock before entering a home where you have gained legal judge ordered search abilities. If people are worried about crooked cops then the law before hand wouldn't of stopped anything.

This is for officer safety to not have to announce themselves and location prior to entering a place that is dangerous. You're not going to be seeing this for every warrant out there.

I disagree. This is going to lead to a lot of dead cops and dead civilians. Under the common law, a homowner has the right to use deadly force to repel an intruder into the home (usually without any duty to retreat).

There is going to be a time period between when the door comes crashing down, and before the resident knows it is the police, where otherwise law abiding residents very well might use deadly force to repel the intruder, and would be legally entitled to do so.

If there are exigent cicrumstances, the cops can already enter in this manner. If the cops are just out to pick up some schmuck who skipped out on bail, then there is no need.

My prediction is that a lot of people are going to die unnecessarily if police departments adopt this for general use.

[jomi822]

and the constitution gets another chunk taken out of it by good old dubyah...

we are getting closer and closer to a police state. if another republican gets elected i dont know what is going to happen. i consider myself a moderate but i feel that bush has been slowly stripping away the checks and balances against government power over his amazing 8 years.

[CDB]

Originally Posted by jomi822

and the constitution gets another chunk taken out of it by good old dubyah...

we are getting closer and closer to a police state. if another republican gets elected i dont know what is going to happen. i consider myself a moderate but i feel that bush has been slowly stripping away the checks and balances against government power over his amazing 8 years.

He has, but it's the police state or the nanny state if you vote for the other side. One takes most of your freedom, the other wants most of your paycheck. I don't know which is worse to be honest. As for this 'new' development, I don't like it but it doesn't seem like anything new. Christ, I think they swarmed Tommy Chong's house with like 30 cops with automatic rifles after one announcement of their presence. 'Cause he was bad ass you know, never know what's gonna happen if you raid his house. I don't think anything bad is going to come of this that hasn't already because I don't think there's going to be a substantive change in LEO's approach to situations. Seems like it just kind of codifies existing practice.

[Jayhawkk]

There's still an announcement time and enter time just not a knock and announce and wait time. You have to remember that most warrants aren't served SWAT style guys. Mistakes still happen and for the high felony warrants this will help cops. You know there was a reason why this was brought up? Cops were getting killed and drugs were getting flushed...Knowing the gov't it was probably more of the latter that got it changed.

[anabolicrhino]

I am all about the constitution, but when you are in a positon of having a warrant served upon you in your residence, there is something that you are doing that has caught the attention of the authorities..unlike the military, local police have to execute some command decisions at the field level. I believe the officers testified that they looked through a window or heard sounds of a possible felony being committed and acted to prevent more felonies from being committed. This is solid police work...note to all future and aspiring felons don't use the fourth amendment to escape the law you have already ignored! goodluck citizens, sometimes the system works!

Now, if you want to reform the drugwar laws...well that it is another issue

[CDB]

Originally Posted by anabolicrhino

I am all about the constitution, but when you are in a positon of having a warrant served upon you in your residence, there is something that you are doing that has caught the attention of the authorities..unlike the military, local police have to execute some command decisions at the field level. I believe the officers testified that they looked through a window or heard sounds of a possible felony being committed and acted to prevent more felonies from being committed.

I heard about that case, I don't know if this is the same one. In that one the cops I believe saw someone getting their ass kicked and entered to intervene. Warrant or not that's proper, and good work. But, as others have stated it's probably not too long before the cops decide to serve a felony warrant on the wrong person. Whether or not an 'announcement' will get through to someone at 3AM before the cops break down the door and maybe walk right into a doubel barrell and get blown away is questionable, or the cops may do the blowing away because someone is groggy and doesn't quite get what's going on that early. All will be of course acceptable casualties. And if Jay is right, in part to stop people from flushing drugs. More chipping away at the constitution because of the drug acception to the fourth ammendment.

Now, if you want to reform the drugwar laws...well that it is another issue

Certainly. But that's the problem. The government comes up with laws that are nigh unenforcable unless police state tactics are used, like sting operations and borderline or well over the border entrapment. SWAT teams swarming houses and gunning people down. And more people in prison per capita than any other nation on Earth. It's all related, drugs, terrorism or whatever. It's always just an excuse for the government to take more power. Always for some reason to protect us from some vague threat, the government needs more power over all citiznes even though the vast majority of them are no threat to anyone.

[raider1]

I do not agree with this at all, I saw just last month a warrant served on a guy who had his ex-wife give the police a tip this guy a ex-con was in illegal possesion of firearms. Now the police dept. served and executed the search warrant in the middle of the day when school buses were dropping kids off in the neighborhood. There were cops in adjacent properties with guns drawn prepared for whatever.. This was served on the WRONG ADDRESS.. Ok now we got cops storming a residence of a innocent person and cops with drawn weapons walking the street . Now a professional dept. would have investigated more and sealed the area ..A school bus pulled right up in front of the house and let kids out that lived across the street all the while the guy with the supposed guns watching what was going on [ oh yeh, they looked and found no guns]... I am all in favor of strong enforcement , but I have seen the dirty side of cops and do not trust them with more that is needed with civil rights and laws.

[anabolicrhino]

Originally Posted by raider1

I do not agree with this at all, I saw just last month a warrant served on a guy who had his ex-wife give the police a tip this guy a ex-con was in illegal possesion of firearms. Now the police dept. served and executed the search warrant in the middle of the day when school buses were dropping kids off in the neighborhood. There were cops in adjacent properties with guns drawn prepared for whatever.. This was served on the WRONG ADDRESS.. Ok now we got cops storming a residence of a innocent person and cops with drawn weapons walking the street . Now a professional dept. would have investigated more and sealed the area ..A school bus pulled right up in front of the house and let kids out that lived across the street all the while the guy with the supposed guns watching what was going on [ oh yeh, they looked and found no guns]... I am all in favor of strong enforcement , but I have seen the dirty side of cops and do not trust them with more that is needed with civil rights and laws.

The constitution demands that all citizens question all authority at any level that may interfere with your life, liberty or persuit of happiness. Anyone who does not question authority is handing their life to a stranger. There is a difference between questioning authority and obstructing justice(a felony) so exercise your constitutional rights with some discretion.

"...If your ememy is greater in number, avoid them. Thus a small enemy which acts inflexibly will become a captive of a larger enemy."
Sun Tzu- The Art of War

[CDB]

Originally Posted by raider1

II am all in favor of strong enforcement , but I have seen the dirty side of cops and do not trust them with more that is needed with civil rights and laws.

Even with the dirty side put aside, not many people question what kind of society we live in where police have to increasingly become militarized and behave as if the general populace were enemy combatants. It's not that hard to put two and two together and realize that if the police weren't burdened with the duty of enforcing laws that were increasingly restrictive and basically unenforcable without more and more intrusive and violent tactics that perhaps the situation wouldn't be so.

[bigSMokey]

Originally Posted by yeahright

I disagree. This is going to lead to a lot of dead cops and dead civilians. Under the common law, a homowner has the right to use deadly force to repel an intruder into the home (usually without any duty to retreat).

Unfortunately, I think your prediction is accurate.

On one hand, with the mistaken intrustions, there will be actions taken against the police who are thought to be criminals committing a "home invasion" robbery. And in return, lethal actions taken against civilians.

On the other hand, say a guy has a couple ounces of coke. Normally, he'd flush it. Yeah, sucks that the cops wasted time and resources and the evidence was lost, but at least everyone gets to see another day. And extending this further - If the guy's got a larger, non-disposable amount of guns, drugs, etc., he's going to try to escape. Often the cops will apprehend these people in the back or side yards. Now, criminals may be more apt to go into panic mode.

Just think about it - a friend of yours plays a trick on you, you know, just scares the s*** out of you. Your intial reaction can range from kocking (had to misspell due to cuss filter) your fist back to swinging or kicking. I've seen guys do it. But once a few seconds go by, you'll begin to calm down and may even squeeze out a small, forced laugh.

So expand that personal experience into the mind of a guy looking at 25 to life. In a split second he thinks "I can't go back to jail" and grabs a weapon. He is in complete panic mode with a masive amount of adrenalin flowing. If given 20 seconds a lot of these people hide in closets, under beds, or more often, try to find the best way to get to the street.

[bigSMokey]

Originally Posted by Dr Liftalot

I disagree, i think its a good thing if they knock there are plenty of warents issiued and sometimes they get the wrong residency(or just a spelling error causes them to go to the wrong home) without any warning swarming a place on a small search warrent when the resident would have clearly let them in without the distruction of property and trama.

Yes, this happens more often than you'd think. Just in my town alone it happened this year. Turns a HUGE crime was committed: one little gangster stabbed another (I know what your thinking, a very unusual occurance). The P.D. then went on a "gang crackdown". In the process of clearing out people who may have been loosely involved, a retired guy's house got the s*** beat out of it. Front and back entry. Turns out oops, we had the wrong house. Fortunately this old guy, nor his wife, died of a heart attack.