Police don't have to knock, CNN article

Police don't have to knock, justices say
Alito's vote breaks 4-4 tie in police search case

Thursday, June 15, 2006; Posted: 12:22 p.m. EDT (16:22 GMT)

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia called the failure to knock a "preliminary misstep."
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."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I'll tell you this... if someone did this to my house they would get shot, period. My 2nd trumps your 4th.
An unconstitutional law is not a law. Simple.

[Griff]

Who is up for a ride?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

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....
I'll tell you this... if someone did this to my house they would get shot, period. My 2nd trumps your 4th.
An unconstitutional law is not a law. Simple.

Speaking as an armed citizen myself, I think you should consider your position before you shoot a cop who has "annouced his presence and authority" and then forcibly entered your home three to five seconds later. I think the court would take a very dim view of your justification for deadly force.

At the same time I'm mindful that a number of home invasions have occurred where the bad guys have *claimed* to be LEOs on entry.

The consitutional privacy issue here used to queer the search in the absence of exigent circumstances. Now apparently it doesn't even do that. But you'd better be prepared to show you were in reasonable fear of death or grevious bodily harm before you shoot someone.

Some interesting background here.

[DanaC]

That's really scary. Don't know if you guys have been follwing the news from over here just recently; police barged into a family home they suspected of housing terrorists and shot a young man in the chest...yep, shot him in the chest. Never mind knocking and waiting, they just broke through their door in the morning whilst the family were still asleep and when one of the men came running down the stairs in his pyjamas ...shot him in the chest...did i mention they shot him in the chest?

What did they do after they shot him in the chest? Well, one of them grabbed him by the feet and dragged him down the stairs, his head banging on each step on the way down and then dropped him ( yes dropped him) onto the floor.

Then they lied about it to the press and claimed he was a terrorist who resisted....He turned out to be (unsurprisingly given their recent form) innocent. Well...innocent of the crime, but unfortunately guilty of being of Pakistani descent.

[MaggieL]

I should add that under the law in my state, the law of justification does state

(a) Use of force justifiable for protection of property.--The use of force upon or toward the person of another is justifiable when the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary:

1. to prevent or terminate an unlawful entry or other trespass upon land or a trespass against or the unlawful carrying away of tangible movable property, if such land or movable property is, or is believed by the actor to be, in his possession or in the possession of another person for whose protection he acts...

But again, this turn on the entry being unlawful. An LEO entering with a warrant isn't unlawful.

[DanaC]

What if he shoots you in the chest?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

That's really scary...

Maybe.

I'm going to the UK for a few days in July, and I'll be completely disarmed the entire time. Pardon me, but I find that a bit scarier than the fact that LEOs might get to keep the evidence they find upon entering my house with a warrant in hand even though they didn't wait long enough after knocking.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

What if he shoots you in the chest?

What if who shoots whom in the chest?

[DanaC]

What's really depressing about this, for me, is that whilst the rest of us assume America will be heavy handed in other peoples' countries, we also assume she will safeguard her own peoples' liberties more strongly.

(unless of course you're darkskinned in which case we assume your police will be as racist as ours and shoot you in the chest)

[DanaC]

What if who shoots whom in the chest?

What if the LEO shoots the householder in the chest?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

What if the LEO shoots the householder in the chest?

Sounds like murder to me. I'd want to hear the cops side of it, of course.

(after checking) Looks like their side of it is "we're sorry". It's evidently not murder mostly because the person shot didn't die.

You couldn't pay me enough to be a cop in the UK...everybody is completely disarmed but the criminals and some of the cops.

[DanaC]

I'm going to the UK for a few days in July, and I'll be completely disarmed the entire time

Unless you look like an Arab or a Pakistani you'll be fine. Very few guns over here compared to over there and very few gun deaths.

If we look at America's record over the years, we could probably find many more incidents of people being shot by police unnecessarily than over here. You'll be fine:P

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Unless you look like an Arab or a Pakistani you'll be fine. Very few guns over here compared to over there and very few gun deaths.

Yes, the thugs don't need guns, apparently they're getting by with knives.

It's not your cops I'm thinking of. And just to put a button on it all, I'll be there on 7/7.

[DanaC]

Maggie, the man survived.

Unfortunately, the young man they shot on the underground (Brazilian, darkish skinned, mistaken identity) died. They also lied about him too.

2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4711021.stm

2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5077198.stm

Unfortunately our police have developed what appears to be a habit of releasing immediate statements which turn out to be untrue, followed by a revised statement a day or so later and then a few days after that we get the truth.

Initially after the Brazilian lad was shot, they claimed they had shouted at him to stop and he ran into the station, jumped over the barrier and onto the train.
It was later revealed, by eyewitnesses that no warning had been shouted and the lad in fact had been running for a train....nor did he jump over the barrier.

The police ran onto the stationary train ....then two of them dragged him to the floor and the third pumped 7 bullets into him at point blank range.

Turns out, he had come out of the block of flats they'd been watching.....unfortunately, one of the poeple watching the flats had nipped off for a quick piss and wasn't sure if he had come from the right flat, but hey, he had dark skin and that made him suspicious.

Later when they published pictures of him, they showed a picture which made him look quite pale. That same picture was later shown to be of a much darker hue. The suggestion is that they altered the picture to off set the accusations of racism.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

If we look at America's record over the years, we could probably find many more incidents of people being shot by police unnecessarily than over here.

Probably so...considering your cops haven't been allowed to have guns for very long and the population of the UK is about 60 million vs. 260 million here.