Police Can Now Break in As You're Flushing Your Stash

By Myles Tanzer Tue., May 17 2011 at 3:54 PM

The Supreme Court decided in an 8-to-1 decision that police have the authority to break into your house if they suspect you're destroying drugs. The Chicago Tribune brings us part of Justice Alito's important decision: "'When law enforcement officers who are not armed with a warrant knock on a door, they do no more than any private citizen may do,' he wrote. A resident need not respond, he added. But the sounds of people moving and perhaps toilets being flushed could justify police entering without a warrant, he added." The court's decision definitely raises concern with the protection of the 4th Amendment -- that's the one that limits searches and seizures.

The case started in Kentucky when police attempted to bust a crack dealer. The dealer sold drugs to an informer and the police tried to arrest the man, only to have him run away. The man ran into an apartment building and the cops had to guess which apartment he was in. They smelled pot in one of the rooms and guessed that it was him. They knocked frantically and heard people inside so they said they were entering. The police broke down the door to find another man, Hollis King, inside smoking pot (he also had cocaine on his table). The police arrested King and put him on trial, where he received a sentence of 11 years in prison.

King appealed the case up to the Supreme Court under the pretenses that the police had no right to enter his apartment. Justice Ginsberg agrees with King as the lone dissenting opinion. She wrote yesterday that the court's decision "arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the 4th Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases."

[Mtanzer]

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JamesOfNY

So the police claim the believed that their suspect escaped into an apartment and immediately fired up a doob?Anyway, pity about losing the 4th Amendment (in practice at least). I liked the 4th Amendment.

11 years for having some lines cut up in front of you is an absolute shit-fuck

But the Kentucky Supreme Court overturned his conviction and ruled the apartment break-in violated his 4th Amendment right against "unreasonable searches and seizures." Police had created an emergency by pounding on the door, the state justices said. -from the Chicago Tribune article http://www.chicagotribune.com/...

rockosmodurnlife

Did the police find the guy they were originally searching for or did they find this lawbreaker and stop?

seems like they just caught another dude getting high at his apartment that had nothing to do with it.

bl1y

This has actually been the law for quite some time. You don't need a warrant to pursue a criminal you've just witnessed committing a crime, and you area allowed to skip the knock-and-announce protocol to prevent evidence from being destroyed.

All that's interesting here is that the cops picked the wrong apartment. But, the 4th Amendment is designed to protect us from willful police abuse. This is not that. This is two cops who had an honest (and not unreasonable) belief that he was in that apartment destroying evidence.

Gargantua

How can you not find this disturbing? Did you not read the dissenting opinion? Here:

“The court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. “In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.”

If you think this is something that will not be abused by the police to enter homes on a whim you are sorely mistaken. Oh, but I forgot. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, right? So bend over.

bl1y

Ample time to obtain a warrant? They were in hot pursuit.