nbcrusader
Blue Crack Addict
High Court Backs Police No-Knock Searches
Does obtaining a legal search warrant satisfy the requirement for reasonable searches? Does a knock on the door make the search itself anymore reasonable?
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 signals the court's conservative shift following the departure of moderate Sandra Day O'Connor.
Dissenting justices predicted that police will now feel free to ignore previous court rulings that officers with search warrants must knock and announce themselves or 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, failed to knock, then went inside three seconds to five seconds later. The court has endorsed longer waits, of 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
"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.
Suppressing evidence is too high of a penalty, Scalia said, for errors by police in failing to properly announce themselves.
Does obtaining a legal search warrant satisfy the requirement for reasonable searches? Does a knock on the door make the search itself anymore reasonable?