CrimLaw

Police can break your door in if you don't answer within 20 seconds. So sayeth the Supreme Court of the United States. Just a bare 20 seconds. They don't have to hear a toilet flushing or someone saying. "Quick, burn the stuff!" They can just break in the door because they have a warrant and you don't answer quickly enough - they can assume that you are creating exigent circumstances on the other side of the door.

First, I have to agree with the defense attorney's appraisal of the decision:

Banks' lawyer, Randall Roske, criticized the ruling, saying it will lead to aggressive searches.

"Police are going to read this as, 'Knock and announce and kick the door in,'" he said.

Yep, absolutely correct. In fact, I'm sure that's already the way police handle this situation (and I've heard about plenty of these police home invasions from clients).

Let's assume police officers with some common-sense, a healthy survival instinct, and an idea that someone dangerous is on the other side of that door (who may fight back or destroy evidence). The knock and announce does not go like this: BANG!! BANG!! BANG!! POLICE! OPEN UP WE HAVE A WARRANT! [wait 10 seconds] OPEN UP OR WE'RE GOING TO BREAK THE DOOR DOWN AND COME IN! [wait 8 seconds] O.K. HERE WE COME!! The knock and announce goes like this: tap, tap, tap (with the knuckle of the pinky finger) - police, open up we've got a warrant - wait a second or two - WHAM! Break through the door rush the house before anyone can react and get control while the occupant(s) are in shock.

Here is a statement which reflects a world view which has not been tainted by reality:

Justice David H. Souter, writing for the nine justices, said while "this call is a close one, 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."

He noted the unfortunate timing of the afternoon raid, which brought Banks "out dripping to confront the police." But police didn't know Banks was in the shower, he said.

Then why did they break into the house in broad daylight? The most likely explanation for a daylight entry is that they thought he was showering, or sleeping, or the like and wouldn't be able to react quickly to get to his weapons or destroy the evidence. They probably had such information from observing him or via the everpresent C.I. (after all they had enough info for a search warrant which must have come from the same source).

Sadly, criminal law decisions rarely seem to reflect reality. It's not really the Justices' fault. After all, how many of them have ever worked as a criminal defense attorney over a long enough period of time to gain an overview of the way things really work (if at all)?

Heck, let's see if we can get Craig Cooley to fill the next opening on the Supreme Court.