Prosecutors can use evidence seized by police during a home search even though officers violated the Constitution by failing to knock or announce their presence before entering, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.

No Remedy When Police Fail to Knock Before Executing Search Warrant

If the police had knocked and waited for the occupant to answer, they would have realized their mistake, and that tragic death would have been prevented.

Complete supposition. But, whatever.

if the cops had knocked and announced before entering, instead of just entering, that the cop would not have been shot.

Can someone point me to the part in the U.S. Constitution where it says government officials have to knock? I never read that in there before.

Execution of Warrants .--The manner of execution of warrants is generally governed by statute and rule, as to time of execution, 155 method of entry, and the like. It was a rule at common law that before an officer could break and enter he must give notice of his office, authority, and purpose and must in effect be refused admittance, 156 and until recently this has been a statutory requirement in the federal system 157 and generally in the States. In Ker v. California, 158 the Court considered the rule of announcement as a constitutional requirement, although a majority there found circumstances justifying entry without announcement.

the fatal funnel

So let me get this straight... Cops can knock on/announce themselves at the wrong door... To serve a warrant... And they can arrest you?

Can someone point me to the part in the U.S. Constitution where it says government officials have to knock? I never read that in there before.

as they continue to pick away at the 4th, soon we'll be back to the days of the crown, with red coated soldiers breaking down the doors to our homes whenever they feel like it.

To clear up a possible confusion, the state agreed they broke the rules here.

As I can figure, the cops can legally bust in unannounced, but a Floridian can bust out 10 rounds before he/she knows who it is and is obviously threatened and startled. I smell trouble in Miami!!

The police execute thousands of search warrants a year, I would guess. The likelihood that some innocent TL libertarian would have his or her door broken down by an undercover SWAT team by mistake is similar to the likelihood that the TL person will have his house or place of business blown up by Al Qaida.

Only drug dealers, criminals and paranoid lefties would like all sort of silly little rules to make the police less effective. Isn't democracy great!

isn't inevitable discovery and exemption to the exclusionary rule. And even if the officer had waited (Which wasn't the issue) in this case, assuming the suspect didn't destroy the cocaine, wouldn't it have been discovered anyway?

In other words, exclusion may not be premised on the mere fact that a constitutional violation was a "but-for" cause of obtaining evidence. Our cases show that but-for causality is only a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for suppression. In this case, of course, the constitutional violation of an illegal manner of entry was not a but-for cause of obtaining the evidence. 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.

Consider this very case. The police obtained a search warrant that authorized a search, not only for drugs, but also for guns. App. 5. If probable cause justified a search for guns, why would it not also have justified a no-knock warrant, thereby diminishing any danger to the officers? Why (in a State such as Michigan that lacks no-knock warrants) would it not have justified the very no-knock entry at issue here? Indeed, why did the prosecutor not argue in this very case that, given the likelihood of guns, the no-knock entry was lawful? From what I have seen in the record, he would have won. And had he won, there would have been no suppression here.

None of the wrong-wingers BS still addresses the fundamental flaw-they can legally kick down the door on the wrong address! Oops! My bad! Look! Something going on here! Whew! Wasn't as bad of a mistake after all!

I, for one, feel less free as a result of this ruling.

Remember, if you voted republican, you are responsible for this latest erosion of true liberty. Thank you for that.

Disagree? Your history here speaks volumes about your willingness to sacrifice freedoms to make your job easier.

The job of law enforcement is to protect the public