Supreme Court deals blow to 4th Amendment

A divided Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, ruled on June 15 that police armed with a search warrant may barge into homes and seize evidence without knocking or waiting. The far-reaching ruling could now encourage police with search warrants to conduct more aggressive raids. Criminals should not be handed a "get out of jail free card" in cases where the police have a valid search warrant, said Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the opinion for the majority. The dissenters said the court's ruling all but repealed a decision that had protected the privacy and dignity of homeowners. Newly-appointed Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. cast the decisive vote. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor heard the case when it was argued in January but retired in February before the case was decided. At that point, the court was evenly split. The case was reargued when Alito replaced her, and he became the tie-breaker. Until this ruling, the court had usually insisted that evidence be thrown out in cases where the police violate the Constitution's ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures." Scalia's opinion was joined in full by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Clarence Thomas and Alito. In 1995, the justices agreed unanimously that the Fourth Amendment usually requires officers to knock on the door and call out "Police!" before they burst into a home. This rule helps ensure the safety of the police and the privacy of the residents, the court said then. Officers have been advised in other cases that they should usually wait about 20 seconds after knocking and announcing their presence before trying to enter a house, but the court has said in past rulings that officers may move faster if they suspect residents are going to flush drugs down a toilet. The case arose out of the search of Booker T. Hudson's home in Detroit in 1998. The police announced themselves but did not knock, and after waiting a few seconds, entered his home and seized drugs and a gun. There is no dispute that the search violated the "knock-and-announce" rule. Detroit police had obtained a search warrant to look for drugs and guns at Hudson's residence. Seven officers had approached his house and saw nothing unusual. Several called out "Police! Search warrant!" but less than five seconds later, the lead officer turned the doorknob and walked into the living room. There sat Hudson with 23 bags that contained crack cocaine. Under the cushion of his chair, they also found a loaded revolver and five rocks of cocaine. Elsewhere in the house, police found more bags of drugs. Hudson was charged with drug and gun crimes, but his lawyers urged the judge to suppress the evidence because police had violated the "knock-and-announce" rule. A prosecutor agreed the police had violated the rule, and a trial judge suppressed the evidence. But the Michigan Supreme Court disagreed and said disallowing the evidence was "not an appropriate remedy" for such a violation. Hudson appealed to the US Supreme Court, which agreed last year to hear his case. The four Supreme Court dissenters said the requirement to "knock-and-announce" will be meaningless if it can be ignored and the evidence used in court. The decision "represents a significant departure from the court's precedents. And it weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection," wrote Justice Stephen G. Breyer in a 30-page dissenting opinion. Breyer noted that even a century ago the court recognized that when the police barge into a house unannounced, it is an assault on "the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life." Breyer insisted that the exclusionary rule was adopted because it was the only effective deterrent for misconduct by the police. Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined him. The rule that police officers must "knock-and-announce" themselves before entering a private home is a well-established part of Fourth Amendment law. Since 1914, the Supreme Court has held that, except in rare circumstances, evidence seized in violation of the Constitution cannot be used. As the court itself recognized in that 1914 case, if this type of evidence were admissible, the Fourth Amendment "might as well be stricken." At first, the exclusionary rule applied only to federal agents who violated the Constitution. The court under Chief Justice Earl Warren gave this rule a national reach in 1961 when it said evidence must be suppressed when state and local police violate the Fourth Amendment. "The knock-and-announce rule is dead in the United States," said David Moran, a Wayne State University professor who represented Hudson. "There are going to be a lot more doors knocked down. There are going to be a lot more people terrified and humiliated." Throughout his opinion, Justice Scalia made clear his view that the right at issue was a minimal, even trivial, one–"the right not to be intruded upon in one's nightclothes," he said at one point–that could not hold its own when balanced against the "grave adverse consequences that exclusion of relevant incriminating evidence always entails." The New York Times responded to the ruling with a lead editorial, saying: "The Supreme Court... substantially diminished Americans' right to privacy in their own homes.... This decision should offend anyone, liberal or conservative, who worries about the privacy rights of ordinary Americans.... For those who worry that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will take the court in a radically conservative direction, it is sobering how easily the majority tossed aside a principle that traces back to 13th-century Britain, and a legal doctrine that dates to 1914, to let the government invade people's homes."