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Originally Posted by richlevy
This probably sounds alarmist...
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Yes, it does..as does this whole thing.
What I'm seeing is a lot of artificial hysteria, then when someone points out the actual facts of the case it's followed by "well, it *could* happen next time" fog and FUD. Meanwhile the sheep who don't read carefully are primed to panic again for the next dose.
How the bloody hell can a headline "Police don't have to knock" be justified reporting a court case where the police knocked?
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Originally Posted by CNN and 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
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That's a lie, displayed as a bolded subhead. The ruling
(Read it here) does not say that. I just can't imagine where people get the idea that the mainstream press has a liberal bias.
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Originally Posted by CNN and AP
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.
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That part is factual.
This is called "inevitable discovery"...the court refused to exclude the evidence of the drugs and a (presumably illegally posessed) gun just because the police didn't wait longer than three to five seconds before entering after knock and announce, and therefore their announcement was claimed to be defective.
There's "exigent circumstances" provisions in the rules for search and seziure...three of them in particular (see the link to the 1976 FBI paper on "knock and announce" I've posted here twice). Given the nature of the evidence in question I think convincing arguments could be made for two of the three.
But if folks are intent on screaming that this is Yet Another Sign Of The Impending Fascist Apocalypse, far be it from me to spoil their fun by continuing to try to draw attention to the facts.