Now, from my understanding of this... they have a search warrant right? The liberal wackjobs over on a forum i view think this is one of the final steps until another Holocaust and its Nazi law. They claim "How dare they enter my house unannounced! This is my place of security and they are taking that away from us". Then I realized... well they have a search warrant... this is just a courtesy, they're getting into your house one way or another by court order. Plus what officer wants to bust down a door and create chaos if they know the suspects are sane enough to open the door for them if they asked them to? I really do hope "knock and announce" was used as painfully little as possible when the suspects were considered dangerous or armed.

I'm glad there are at least a few sane liberals. On this other forum, one came in and pretty much told them that they're blowing things out of proportion and that their argument had no logic to it and was complete emotion. People will complain about anything these days however.

That also brings up a good point however. How can we even come close to saying we have a fair and impartial system when people can get out on technicalities? You didn't read the confessed murderer his rights? Well, let him go! Rights are far more important then... you know, justice.

So when a vindictive Democrat tips off the local P.D. about a drug stash that YOU actually don't have, and they bust in while you are cleaning your gun(I assume you might have one), guess what... you are dead.

Of course you will be found innocent as they lay the wreath on your coffin. Are you OK with that?

Sadly, in a world that thinks tens of thousands of innocent dead war casualties has less meaning than the quadratic equation, yes, you probably are.

Its NOT a good thing, many police officers have come forward to say this exact thing.

The reason is that when you announce your presence, "POLICE!!", the people inside know who you are and why you are there. If they just go bashing the door down, the people inside do NOT know who they are and the first reaction will be to fire at the people coming in.

This also gives a criminal that kills a cop breaking unannounced a defense, since there is NO possible way thet he could have known it was the cops, he has a legitimate chance at getting off on a self defense plea.

This kind of thing is going to get a lot of cops killed and a lot of people as well since the cops will be firing at the people firing at them as they come in.

If a stranger kicked my door down I probably wouldn't hesitate to shoot them. This doesnt seem like a good idea to me.

Seems like announcing yourself before entering allows a person guilty of committing a crime time to destroy, distort or eliminate evidence. For example if there are drugs on the premises and a cop announces him/her self, one person could answer the door while another flushed the incriminating evidence down the toilet.

It truly baffles me why anyone would omit evidence based on a “technicality” when the whole purpose of trial should be to determine truth. By omitting some known piece of evidence we hinder ourselves in finding that truth. All of this works in favor of the criminal and their crafty lawyers. Why would you want to fight crime with one hand tied behind your back?

You might say that the intent of the rule is to force law enforcement to work within boundaries. Supposedly working within boundaries helps prevent innocent people from being victimized. I say truly innocent people are more often victimized by criminals being “let go” based on technicalities.

For example there was a case not so long ago in NYC where a woman was murdered in cold blood in broad daylight. There were several witnesses at the scene of the crime while it was happening. The police were called in and told who committed the murder and where he lived. The police obtained a search warrant and proceeded to make the arrest. They entered the apartment of the murder and found bloody clothes along with the murder weapon, a club or a bat or something of that nature.

The next day the murder was out of jail walking the street. It appears that his lawyer found a glitch and proceeded to have the judge rule all of the evidence found in the apartment inadmissible. What glitch could have possible let a murder go when the police had a murder weapon, bloody clothes that matched the victim and the search warrant? Well, it appears that the search warrant specified for the police to enter the murder’s premises on the afternoon that the warrant was issued. The police actually entered the apartment less than 15 minutes after 6:00pm that day. The lawyer argued that 6:00pm was clearly not in the afternoon and therefore invalid after 6:00pm. The judge agreed and let the criminal go. What an absolute travesty of justice!

There should NEVER be a situation where evidence is deemed inadmissible. If there is a circumstance where someone from the law enforcement did something wrong then that action should be subject to a review and punishment where warranted. It would be totally idiotic, insane to let a criminal go to punish a cop or investigator for an error in following the rules.

Wow, liberals don't really have a grasp of reality do they. Cop's arent stupid enough to think a disassembled gun being cleaned presents a clear and present danger and open fire. This will save lives in the end. When a cop needs to bust down a door on a drug dealer with an AK47, he won't have to worry about what the ACLU and Howard Dean will have to say when they take measures to ensure their own safety.

Then again we can be anti-liberal (i mean, intelligent) and realize that cops never kick down random doors if no real threat exists. They also will not announce when they know a threat exists. The last thing cops want is more trouble in an already dangerous and unappreciated job. Thus, congressives point is illogical and represents no real grasp on reality.

In the past no knock warrants were available as long as you had a reason, IE: Drug dealers flushing stuff down the toilet.

If they can use that tactic without a reason, dollars to donuts it will be used more frequently than needed.

Once you start seeing a rise in police killed in the line of duty and an increase in cop killers going free, because the no knock gives them a seld defense arguement, you will see.

the fact that evidence can still be excluded is alarming. ... No fact relevant to the case at hand should be excluded.

What is the alternative that will still provide sufficient incentive to not perform illegal searches? It's all well and good that the Constitution forbids warrantless searches, but there needs to be a penalty for performing such a search, otherwise it's just words on paper. So as a serious question, what do you propose as a replacement for the exclusionary rule?

gms,

Nice that someone is actually commenting on the case at hand - just as an aside, the case isn't about whether the cops should announce (they did in this case), but whether or not evidence should be excluded if they don't or, as this case actually is, didn't "properly" announce themselves.

As for what to do about illegal searches - I'm unsure except on one point: allowing the guilty to walk because the cops make a mistake is not the answer. The exclusionary rule was something that activist liberal judges instituted because, back when they were re-writing American law from the bench with wild abandon, it was considered wrong to actually punish criminals for their crimes - at least, that was the attitude of liberals who didn't have to fear the criminals released on a technicality. Essentially, the judges were holding that the problem with crime was anything other than the criminal committing a crime - but the only thing the judges could do, as it were, is punish the cops and so that is precisely what they did...except it didn't punish the cops to have the perp walk.

We should also keep in mind that we pay our police to deal with the dark underside of our society - it is a very harsh world, and we should be giving them every benefit of the doubt for this very reason. Someone has to keep a lid on the anti-social elements - and said lid cannot be kept on it if we are forever second-guessing the police.

Mark,

It never ceases to amaze me just how illogical you are.

in the past 25 years, a lion's share of the federal judges put on the bench have been Republican appointees, so are you saying that Reagan and Bush 1 and 2 are responsible for putting judges on the bench who are hell-bent on letting criminals go?

Let's look at facts, shall we:

Democrats, since Johnson, have appointed 367 federal judges, 2 of those being SCOTUS justices.

Since the same timeframe, Republicans have appointed 464 federal judges, 8 of which were SCOTUS justices.

http://www.afj.org/judicial/judicial_selection_resources/selection_database/byCourtAndAppPres.asp

So, as you can see, all this complaining about judges is total BS, YOUR side has had a far higher share of judges appointed. So aside from the chance that Republicans just don't know what they are doing, you folks have had plenty of oportunity to get ideologically friendly people on these federal posts. So what is the problem, why are you guys still complaining, do you want every state, local, and federal position stacked with your folks, will that make you feel better about failing so much?

Mark,

It never ceases to amaze me just how illogical you are.

in the past 25 years, a lion's share of the federal judges put on the bench have been Republican appointees, so are you saying that Reagan and Bush 1 and 2 are responsible for putting judges on the bench who are hell-bent on letting criminals go?

Let's look at facts, shall we:

Democrats, since Johnson, have appointed 367 federal judges, 2 of those being SCOTUS justices.

Since the same timeframe, Republicans have appointed 464 federal judges, 8 of which were SCOTUS justices.

http://www.afj.org/judicial/judicial_selection_resources/selection_database/byCourtAndAppPres.asp

So, as you can see, all this complaining about judges is total BS, YOUR side has had a far higher share of judges appointed. So aside from the chance that Republicans just don't know what they are doing, you folks have had plenty of oportunity to get ideologically friendly people on these federal posts. So what is the problem, why are you guys still complaining, do you want every state, local, and federal position stacked with your folks, will that make you feel better about failing so much?

Not specific to knock and announce, but Mark is right in that punishing police by letting criminals go free on technicalities is a bad idea.

The victims (past and future) are the primary ones punished when someone gets off on a technicality. Society as a whole is also lessened by giving criminals easy outs like that.

gms is also right that there needs to be SOME way to insure that the police don't run amok. I don't know what that method should be (that will be able to both transcend the blue wall AND keep every criminal from tying things up with false accusations), but that way should not involve the bad guys getting a pass. As I said before, the police are not even the main ones punished by such policies.