Are officers required to first knock and announce their presence
before they knock down your front door?
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution sets out limitations on unreasonable
searches and seizures of property.
A 1995 Supreme Court decision, based on the Fourth Amendment required
officers to knock and announce their presence before knocking down your
door or conducting a search.
Recently, the Supreme Court weakened the knock and announce rule.
So the recent Supreme Court decision did away with the requirement
to knock and announce?
It didn’t do away with the requirement, but it got rid of the
only effective means of enforcing it. For almost a hundred years, the
Fourth Amendment has been enforced by the Exclusionary Rule.
This rule states that evidence gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment,
or gathered without following the proper procedures, would not be admissible
in court.
In the past, a police raid without a knock-and-announce would trigger
the Exclusionary Rule. That is intended to prevent police from breaking
those rules because the officers would want the evidence to be used in
a successful prosecution.
Is this the first time the Exclusionary Rule has been weakened?
No. There are a number of exceptions to the Exclusionary Rule.
For example, evidence gathered illegally can be used in grand jury hearings
and civil trials, and such evidence can even be introduced during criminal
cases to undermine the credibility of a witness for the defense.
In fact, police have had the right to forego knock-and-announce when
they believed it would lead to the destruction of evidence, or if there
is an imminent physical threat.
On what basis did the court justify their decision ?
- The Supreme Court in Hudson vs. Michigan,justified their
decision, in part, on safety concerns of police officers.
On the other hand, an informal study of newspaper records shows that
over a 10 year period, 42 innocent people were killed in police raids,
as well as 15 police officers, and 20 non-violent offenders.
The Supreme Court was sharply divided in its decision.
This decision reflects the increase of police power in this
country.
