SCOTUS: Police don't have to knock, justices say

[ArmedBear]

BTW, has anyone considered that the real problem with this is that the no-knock entry was done to bust someone for crimes that shouldn't be crimes?

If the guy was a known mob hitman with 25 murders under his belt, would any of us really think the cops should have to knock? I don't.

But he was caught with drugs and a gun. So the hell what? Why is the possession of these objects (or any objects short of, perhaps, a canister of weaponized anthrax or a nuclear weapon) a crime at all?

That is the real question, to me.

 

[12-34hom]

Let the hand wringing begin.... our favorite catch phrases - JBT - SS - Nazis have already be bantered about....

I'm waiting for Waco and Ruby Ridge to to be mentioned for some vague reference to this ruling.

What has this ruling changed - in Iowa - nothing - no knock warrants are not issued. You announce your presence - enter - whatever residence is named and specified on your S.W. [After going before a judge and articulating your reasons for your warrant in the first place].

12-34hom.

 

[wheelgunslinger]

Meh.
Police have been getting away with this stuff for a while. Justice Scalie just gave your attorney an unpierceable veil to face when he prepares the lawsuit you will be filing after they break into your home, violate your property rights, and maybe wound or kill you or your family should you be quick enough to grab your home defense tackle before they get you cuffed and stuffed and duct taped.
I'm not a tin foil hat kinda guy, really. But, I never thought I'd see a time when I had to wonder, when I heard my door getting kicked in @ 0400 hours, that it might be the police, so I should put my weapon down and cower in the corner. Not here in the USA.
My mistake for assuming all the stuff about the U.S my grandpa taught me wasn't fiction.

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" W.B. Yeats

 

[Smurfslayer]

Ok, I'll bite...

As a veteran of a human home invasion encounter, I feel qualified to comment.

Can you answer my question about what pratical difference it means? I'd really like to know where everyone is coming from. All the moaning and wailing seems like a kneejerk panic reaction.

Yes. It is a stake through the heart of the presumption of innocence.
"A man's home is his castle". That phrase in one form or another goes back to the very first stone structures legally speaking. It was, and always has been considered a common courtesy to knock before entering a structure that does not belong to you. This has been part of the common law here since Jamestown.

When you are in your home, you are afforded certain legal rights and privileges that do not necessarily extend to you outside the privacy of your home or the curtilage, and in some place, your property. Even in my humble home, 3-5 seconds isn't enough time for me to get up out of bed, and get to a close enough position to be able to shout loud enough that I'm coming to the door, much less get to it and let someone in.

Because I have been involved in an encounter with an unwanted, uninvited visitor, I have made decisions that ensure *MY* security, and the security of the lawful occupants of my dwelling. I often here the phrase "I'm going home to my family at the end of my shift." We're talking about people who are IN their home WITH THEIR FAMILY.


A door being burst down, knocked open is an invasion, without the property owner's permission. Warrant notwithstanding, at it's base level it is occupying territory of another by force. That is an attack in it's least common denominator, which violates decency, public decorum, and as an act it is malum inse. This decision says that agents of the state can simply enter the structure specified in the warrant and although it's "bad" it shouldn't mean that evidence gets suppressed. I don't know how you treat your uninvited guests, perhaps you're better at hospitatlity than I am...

I think that this decision is going to prove to be a WLM - Waco Like Moment(tm). Criminals will soon understand they can be "hit" at any time, in any place by the police. There will be significantly less incentive for them to "go quietly" since the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures now no longer exists. It's unlikely to affect me personally, I don't conduct my affairs in a manner that typically draws unwanted attention from the law - except when one of them slanders my good name by accusing me of exceeding the posted speed limit or the like... Still, to understand why a lot of people are offended by this, look at where this protection stood 100 years ago, and 150 years ago and compare it with today.

 

[Jeff]

In cases like this the court has to balance the needs of society to enforce the laws it passed with the right of the individual

Exactly what kind of societal needs are so lofty that when busting down people's doors (even the doors of guilty parties) it would compel any individual to feel safer because of it? What type of needs would such dangerous and often criminal action serve?

 

[ArmedBear]

Exactly what kind of societal needs are so lofty that when busting down people's doors (even the doors of guilty parties) it would compel any individual to feel safer because of it?

Simple. As I wrote above, the real problem with this case is that the guy was not apparently a serious criminal.

If there was someone holed up in a house, and he'd just barbecued and eaten ten schoolchildren he'd kidnapped after killing their teacher and the principal with a machete, most individuals would feel a lot safer if the cops went in and got the bastard, preferably not alive.

But someone with some drugs? You're right. I care a lot more about the sanctity of my home than I do about someone with some drugs.

 

[Navy joe]

Knock, no Knock; Announce, do not announce. Doesn't really matter what happens now. Police make a "procedural error" in announcement now and they can explain it away, avoid lawsuit, and DAs can keep evidence found by pointing to this precedent. Theoretically we do not live in slave cabins or the king's serfdom, so what we live in is ours, not at another's pleasure. To remove legal consequence from violating a free person's domain is to invite the legal consequence to be replaced with others. Important evidence may be there, but a search warrant subject is still quite innocent until they are proven guilty. This decision alters that balance by not requiring police to give the homeowner a chance to demonstrate their character by opening the door when knocked upon.

Felony arrest warrants, genuine no-knocks for officer safety? Forced entry of occupied dwellings needs to be seen as a last resort, probably safest for all involved.

Edit. P.S. I have been served with several civil warrants for failure to appear/ pay child support. None of the names were remotely me, different genders and ethnic groups. My house I lived in was formerly a rental. What if those same folks had been reported as making meth in an anonymous tip by a vindictive ex- that wasn't getting her child support? Would I be here? I spent several years of bachelordom sleeping ten feet from the front door on the couch with a pistol parked on the coffee table between me and the door. An erroneous no announcement raid would have gone badly for me. If I answered a knock warrant I would probably be stuffed and cuffed, but alive to tell the cops they got the wrong guy.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I'm waiting for Waco and Ruby Ridge to to be mentioned . . . .

Wait no longer.

Ruby Ridge
1985 - FBI agent Kenneth Weiss sends an unarned messenger to the
Weaver cabin with a request for an interview; Randy and Vicki Weaver
come down and meet with Weiss and five others agents for hours.
1992 - US Marshals on a surveillance mission in connectiom with a
eighteen month old bench warrant are chased by a Weaver dog through
the woods, ending in a shooting that leaves the dog, Sammy Weaver and
DUSM Bill Degan dead.
Waco
1992 - Koresh and his lawyer meet with the sheriff's department to
discuss neighbor complaints about gunfire at the Davidian rifle range.
1993 - BATF agents use a knock-service warrant to execute a dynamic
entry raid with a team trained at Ft. Hood by Special Forces; somebody
shoots and the other side returns fire; ten die the first day.

Sometimes the dynamic entry paramilitary SWAT tactics get people killed
when less confrontational procedures worked in the past and should
have been tried.

For the general run of searchs, the knock-announce-then enter is
safer for all than the no-knock or this announce-then enter procedure.

 

[Roadwild17]

When they start crying about good cops getting shot by people when the cop broke into the wrong house, I’m going to turn my head in discuss. Why would a cop just barge in, doesn’t that put there life in more danger? How many wrongful death lawsuits are gona fly when the cops barge in and you go for your gun, but you didn’t know it was the cops?

 

[Gordon Fink]

For Jeff White and the other defenders of the police state, the problem is the trend that is being created. All warrants may now be effectively construed as no-knock warrants, and though they will not always be used as such, the practice will no doubt increase. The accidental shooting of police officers and householders will surely increase along with it. Thus will the clamor rise for further firearms prohibitions in the name of both officer and public safety.

~G. Fink

 

[ArmedBear]

There is another wrinkle, of course.

These entries seem to go awry too often in densely-populated areas, with cops going in the wrong window or door. California law states that someone who forcibly enters my home can be assumed to intend to do my family harm, and that I can legally use deadly force to stop them, with no further evaluation required. No-knocks are bad for cops as well as citizens.

Legally, then, the cops can get a warrant and bust down my door. And I can legally shoot them dead right then and there, at least until someone has pulled out a badge. Who wins here? Nobody.

 

[ArmedBear]

When they start crying about good cops getting shot by people when the cop broke into the wrong house

If someone drives down the wrong street and ends up in San Diego Bay, we don't call him a good driver. If a cop breaks into the wrong house, obviously he wasn't a really good cop.

 

[Chaz]

Jeff,
The answer to all of this is quite simple. Incrementalism.

For example, Before the 1930's a citizen could own a machine gun
After the Miller decesion a citizen had to pay a tax (read registration) to own a SBR or machine gun.
After 1968 you could no longer purchase guns via mail.
After 1986 no more machine guns could be imported or manufactured for non gov or police use.
1994-2004 certain rifles/carbines with certain features could no longer be produced or possesed and handgun magazines were restricted in amount held.

This, like many other things, was a slow erosion of our fundamental rights granted by our creator, not by our government. Now it seems the other way around is happening.

I dont see the responses here as "knee jerk", rather as an outcry to the incrementalism that we see more and more of everyday as our country seemingly gives away it's rights to the government.

 

[Parker Dean]

OK, I think it's time to stop complaining about this and turn our attention to fixing it. The eminent domain issue shows us one way which is to burn up the ears of local and state legislators to make no-knocks illegal. That's one way, anyone have another?

 

[Optical Serenity]

A true no knock warrant service is when you don't announce your presense at all but just enter the residence. True no knock warrants are very hard to get and contrary to the popular beliefs of members of internet gun forums are very rare.

+1! Finally a voice of reason in here. All the chest thumping super paranoia gets old fast.

This ruling has not changed anything, just re-affirmed what already exists.

This stupid case shouldn't even have made it to the supreme court, but apparently there are judges out there who are ignorant. (Imagine that!)

Why are internet gun forums filled with the most anti-govt anti-police anti-civil order super paranoid people I've ever seen? I wonder how high the felon count probably is on gun forums?

No-Knock provisions are VERY hard to get, as they should be. I've never seen one just given away. All you folks who talk about this stuff here, should go and see this stuff for yourself. You probably never will, being as how a private citizen is not going to get a search warrant, but it is not easy to get...especially with a no-knock.

 

[ProficientRifleman]

Jeff White

If the news reports are correct, what has this ruling changed?

You need to clarify the question, Jeff. What has changed, since when? Since the day before yesterday? Pactically, nothing, since yesterday Police were doing this anyway and getting away with it because...they meant well.

What has changed in the last thirty years? EVERYTHING...history didn't begin when you were borne. It didn't begin when YOU became a police officer. There is a tendency for folks to think that curent circumstances "Have always ben this way" if it has become accepted practice.

Can you answer my question about what pratical difference it means?

It means, Jeff, that any PRETENSE of a connection to the ancient common law is now desolved. It means that old anachronistic, quaint litttle concept of a man having a RIGHT to his property, and a right to defend his property, and that it is a sin against ALL FREE MEN to violate the sanctity of a man's home is now completely abandoned. The ancient principle that a man's home is his castle is now completely gone. Before this ruling there was the slightest clinging thread connecting us to that ancient principle. No more.

I'll be the first to admit my take was wrong if this ruling does in fact make every warrant a no knock warrant. But I don't think it does.

Wuld you or any other police officer truly object in principle if this was indeed the case? I doubt you would.

The court doesn't exist to always defend personal liberty.

It is supposed to! Read the Declaration of Independence. Supposedly, governments are instituted amoung men for the purpose of securing the rights of life liberty and property...uh... persuit of happiness.

Governments are NOT instituded amoung free men in order to redistribute wealth, grant free stuff to some, and confiscate property from others. Peace Officers should be aware of the Historic principles of the Common Law. I said in another post, that a peace officer either fully believes in his oath to support and defend the Constitution of the U.S. and of the State in which he is commisioned, or he has perjured himself.

Instead, these days, they just shrug their shoulders and say..."Bust down doors? Wlll hell, I guess thats what we're doin this week..."

God help us...

 

[K-Romulus]

application to facts

Sure, the police may be able to announce themselves without knocking and meet the knock and annouce requirement in certain cases.

But how are you to know (in, say a townhouse or apartment building) that they are "announcing" at YOUR residence without the knock on YOUR door?

That is, if you hear them at all (due to traffic noise, machinery noise, snoring, whatever).

Maybe if we all lived out on three acres of land the argument that it is "reasonable" for just an announcement would be at least have some weight under a laugh-test.

But we don't all live in a single-story home on three acres of open land.

 

[bill in IN]

Just MHO, but I think they're knocking down the poisoned fruit argument. Seems to me from what I've read they are not condoning the no-knock warrants, they are saying that throwing out the evidence is not the appropriate cure.

No-knock is dangerous for both LEO's, citizens, and the country.

 

[alan]

Re this ruling, what has become of The Fourth Amendment.

Having asked that question, does this ruling make for a new high or a new low in USSC jurusprudence?

 

[Cosmoline]

On the plus side, I've never heard the cops approach any structure with anything resembling stealth. Even a squad of undercover feds who came to the neighborhood to track down a suspect in a drug case stuck out like sore thumbs. Nice shoes, pressed shirts, obviously concealed firearms and dark glasses on a rainy day--coupled with the "cop walk" that they all seem to share. The locals arrive with flashing lights, squelching radios and lots of thumping. I've had the police to my door several times, and I knew it was APD long before the knock.

But if someone really did kick my door down with no warning, I'd shoot first and ask questions later. That's a really good way to get cops killed, not to mention homeowners.

 

[Vex]

[QUOTE="bill in IN]Just MHO, but I think they're knocking down the poisoned fruit argument. Seems to me from what I've read they are not condoning the no-knock warrants, they are saying that throwing out the evidence is not the appropriate cure.
[/QUOTE]

I just read the opinion, and this is the same consludion I've come to. At no time did the opinion state that failure to knock and announce is condoned, but instead elaborated that suppressing evidence found during a warranted search of property is not the appropriate remedy, and that mistakes on the part of law enforcement should not allow a "get out of jail free" card to criminals.

I blame CNN. It's very easy to misconstrue the true meaning of the opinion, and CNN has facilitated this.

 

[veloce851]

Navy Joe said:

Theoretically we do not live in slave cabins or the king's serfdom, so what we live in is ours, not at another's pleasure.

Theoretically we DO live in "slave cabins" and/or the king's serfdom.
Property taxes are nothing more than rent. levy, tax, tariff, extortion, blackmail, call it what you like.
I'd like to find ONE person who truly owns their land. I don't know of anyone who does.
We earn the right to rent. yippee

I found this the quite disturbing...

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

Clearly?? Conservative shift??

Am I the only one that finds that statement misleading, flawed, and downright disturbing? (rhetorical.. obviously I'm not the only one)

It sounds like pure propaganda to try and lump such a decision into a conservative catagory.

 

[kel]

Vex...

If the evidence is not suppressed, what will motivate police to follow the proper procedure? We see this every day in the way police treat people they don't actually intend to prosecute, especially innocent people like me. The politest behavior I have ever seen coming from an LEO was directed towards a man who had been shooting at several officers just hours earlier (it was all on camera)... When I was detained for open carrying I received the most horrendous treatment I have ever experienced in my life.

 

[saltydog]

I kinda hope I live long enough to see "Warrants" declared unconstitutional" I gota $20.00 bill that I say someday they won't be needed.

 

[WYO]

The police had probable cause. A judge had given them the warrant. What the police didn’t do was knock on the door. They went in and found the incriminating evidence. At issue was the remedy for failing to knock. The court did not think that excluding the evidence seized pursuant to judicially recognized probable cause was the required remedy. The ruling doesn’t prevent the police from getting sued for failing to follow the correct procedure. They remain at risk if something goes down bad because they didn’t knock. It doesn't prevent them from being disciplined. It doesn’t change the laws of self defense. It doesn’t change the ability of states to provide more rights involving state prosecutions. It does define a limitation on the exclusionary rule that many would not have predicted. But, I don’t see the exclusionary rule in the 4th amendment, either. It is a judicially created doctrine created in the 20th century, and remains susceptible of interpretation.