- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Police
officers executing a search warrant do not violate constitutional rights
by waiting only 15 to 20 seconds after knocking and announcing their presence
before using force to enter a suspect's residence, the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled on Tuesday.
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- The unanimous decision written by Justice David Souter
held that officers who searched for cocaine in a suspect's apartment in
Las Vegas did not violate the constitutional protection against unreasonable
searches and seizures of evidence.
-
- He said the officers, who forced their way in after only
a brief pause were justified because of the "exigent circumstances"
that the drugs could be disposed of if they waited any longer.
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- "We think that after 15 or 20 seconds without a
response, police could fairly suspect that cocaine would be gone if they
were reticent any longer," Souter wrote in the ruling.
-
- The ruling was a victory for the U.S. Justice Department,
which argued that "prolonged delay" could lead to the easy destruction
of drugs and could expose officers to "undue danger" from "violent,
armed" criminals.
-
- The case stemmed from an incident in the middle of the
afternoon on July 15, 1998, when officers from the Las Vegas Police Department
and the FBI executed a warrant at the apartment of LaShawn Lowell Banks.
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- The officers knocked on the front door, announced a "police
search warrant" and waited 15 or 20 seconds. Hearing no response,
they used a battering ram on the front door to enter the small apartment.
-
- Banks said he did not hear the officers knock and announce
their presence because he was in the shower. The officers found him standing
by the bathroom, having just come out of the shower.
-
- Souter said the relevant inquiry was not whether Banks
was in the shower and that it might have taken him longer than 20 seconds
to reach the door.
-
- The relevant inquiry, he said, is the amount of time
it would take for Banks to destroy the cocaine. There was no indication
the police knew Banks was in the shower and was unaware that they wanted
to search the apartment, he added.
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- The search of the apartment turned up cocaine, pistols
and a scale, among other things. Banks was charged with possession of cocaine,
with intent to distribute it, and with possession of a firearm as an unlawful
drug user.
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- Banks moved to suppress the evidence, arguing the search
violated his constitutional rights because the officers failed to follow
appropriate knock-and-announce procedures.
-
- The justices overturned a decision by a U.S appeals court
in San Francisco that the search was unconstitutional because the officers
did not wait a reasonable amount of time.
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- Souter said other federal appeals courts have routinely
held that similar wait times of 15 to 20 seconds to be reasonable in drug
cases that involve easily disposable evidence.
-
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