Thursday, June 15, 2006

Searches without Warning

The Supreme Court decided today that it is ok for Police to search homes without knocking or giving some form of warning before entering. I am perfectly ok with this since I don't think this violates the Constitution as a form of unreasonable search. In the case in question the police did have a warrant. Throwing out evidence from cases in which the police failed to announce themselves is absurd because it has nothing to do with whether or not a suspect committed a crime. I do wish to point out that this ruling may cause future problems when the police barge into someone's home unannounced. Suppose the police have the wrong house and just run right in and the homeowner thinks he is under attack and kills a police officer in what he perceives to be self defense. I can envision lawsuits where the police have shot an innocent man dead because he was defending his rights. It may be useful to police to sometimes not knock before entering but they should in most cases still do this anyway and be very sure of what they are doing when they use this new freedom of theirs.