The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock.

Well, of course they can. How are you going to stop them? But that's not what the court said. The court reaffirmed the necessity of knocking.* However, the court held that there was no nexus between the failure to knock and finding evidence described in the warrant. As a result, there is no need to exclude the evidence.

* Kind of. Justice Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, indicated that he thinks that the knocking requirement is kind of silly, or at least unenforceable. However, because Michigan didn't contest the knock requirement, the question wasn't before the court. Justice Anthony "Sarah Day O'" Kennedy, joining the majority, made clear that he would not vote to overturn the knock requirement, meaning that there are 5 pro-knock Justices on the court.

The Constiution means whatever Kennedy says it does.

Does this mean that the Supreme Court will start ruling that any mistake on the part of police does not automatically entail the perp getting to use his "Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free" card? I've always thought that the proper solution was not to exclude such evidence, but indict and try the officers responible for not following the rules. Then again, for police with the soul of a bureaucrat, that may be an incentive to not do the job at all.

In a word, No.

Raoul,

I really like the sound of your solution, except for one problem: who will actually implement it?

What's the big deal! So the cops have reduced the entry process to ONE very LOUD "knock." Everybody's happy, right?

Raoul - Your "proper solution" was, in fact, the state of the law for oj's 120 years of precedent - was it not?

I haven't read the case yet. The above slug makes a lot of sense.

The "knock-knock" rule was never to protect privacy, but rather to make searches safer for all concerned. Tragedies result when poplice break into the houses of armed citizens unannounced.

Thus the Fouth Amendment exclusionary sanction is inppropriately applied to the safety policy of the knock-knock rule, there being no Constitutional right to dispose of evidence.

I've always thought that it was ridiculous for criminals to go free because a policeman didn't follow some procedure to the letter, but I assumed it was the law instead of more meddling by the liberals judges.

Discipline the wrong doer, but convict the criminal and put him/her in jail. Likewise for procedural errors in the courtroom that result in a mistrial or even a dismissal so the perp goes free.

This new supreme court is great and I see a lot wrongs righted (pun intended) and soon I hope we'll see some the old time lefties on the bench moving on.

The problem, such as it is, is that no jury in the world is going to find a cop guilty of trespass for discovering evidence of a crime.

Mr. Cohen;

But is that a problem? I would be fine with letting such cops off the hook if they were successful. If they aren't, send them up the river. That would provide more incentive to get it right than any set of official regulations.