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Knock-and-Announce Rule

The knock-and-announce rule requires that police officers executing search warrants should not immediately force their way into residences. Instead, they must first knock, identify themselves and their intent, and wait a reasonable amount of time so that the residence’s occupants may let them in. This common-law-rule is a part of the reasonableness analysis judges use to determine whether or not a search is reasonable. See Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927 (1995).

The Supreme Court identified several reasons supporting the rule in Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586 (2006). These include avoiding accidental injury to officers and residents, preventing unnecessary property damage, and protecting occupants' privacy and dignity. The rule does not, however, protect occupants' right to avoid government seizure of their property. Accordingly, although the Exclusionary Rule may apply to some police violations of the rule, it does not apply in all cases.

Police may break the knock-and-announce rule when it is reasonable to do so, most frequently when there is a risk of injury to the police officers executing the search warrant or when there is a risk that a residence's occupants could destroy the sought-after evidence between the officers' knock and entry. These exceptions must be determined on a case-by-case basis. For example, in Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 358 (1997), the Supreme Court ruled that states may not allow a blanket exception to the knock-and-announce rule for all searches in felony drug cases. Officers may seek a "no-knock" warrant in advance, if they suspect that a no-knock entry would be justified when they serve the warrant.

In practice, over the past decade, no-knock warrants have seen increasingly frequent use, particularly in drug cases, and especially in major cities. There has been a corresponding increase in the number of innocents accidentally injured or killed by police executing no-knock warrants.

See Fourth Amentment; Search Warrants; Criminal Procedure.

 

 In Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927 (1995), we held that the Fourth Amendment incorporates the common law requirement that police officers entering a dwelling must knock on the door and announce their identity and purpose before attempting forcible entry. 

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  In order to justify a "no knock" entry, the police must have a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile, or that it would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime by, for example, allowing the destruction of evidence. This standard--as opposed to a probable cause requirement--strikes the appropriate balance between the legitimate law enforcement concerns at issue in the execution of search warrants and the individual privacy interests affected by no knock entries. Cf. Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 337 (1990) (allowing a protective sweep of a house during an arrest where the officers have "a reasonable belief based on specific and articulable facts that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene"); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968) (requiring a reasonable and articulable suspicion of danger to justify a pat down search). This showing is not high, but the police should be required to make it whenever the reasonableness of a no knock entry is challenged.

  Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 US 385 (1997)