ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 4, 1997 TAG: 9701060051
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
Police officers generally need to knock and announce themselves before breaking down doors to search a house.
An exception, in about one-sixth of the states, is allowed when officers armed with search warrants are looking for drugs. Those states say that drug suspects are often dangerous and can easily flush drugs down a toilet if they know police officers are outside.
On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the exception for drug cases violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
The accepted case comes from Wisconsin, where the state's highest court first announced in 1994 that such requirements were ``no longer valid in today's drug culture.''
The rule has roots in England almost 400 years old. Most states and the federal government require the rule, arguing it protects privacy, reduces the risk of violence, prevents destruction of property and gives innocent people a chance to correct police mistakes.
Even so, there are some long-recognized exceptions. Police officers may conduct no-knock raids if announcing themselves before entry would lead to destruction of evidence, a suspect's escape or imminent danger to human life.
Six states - Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland and New Jersey - impose no knock-and-announce requirement of any kind.
When the Supreme Court considered the issue in 1995, it ruled unanimously that the knock-and-announce principle must be observed as a general rule. But the justices left it to lower-court judges to decide when exceptions could be made.
Now the justices will decide whether Wisconsin's blanket exemption for drug searches is constitutional.
The challenge is brought by Steiney Richards, who was arrested after police in Milwaukee burst into his hotel room on New Year's Eve in 1991. They had a search warrant to look for cocaine and did not knock before entering.
The officers found the cocaine, and Richards was convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
In upholding his conviction, the Wisconsin Supreme Court said police always confront an emergency situation when they search for drugs, and that overrode the homeowner's traditional right of privacy.
In an earlier case, a Wisconsin Supreme Court judge, Shirley Abrahamson, reminded her colleagues of the importance of that right:
``When police storm into a home, they are likely to find its occupants in various states of undress, in bed or in the bathroom,'' she wrote.
``Children are likely to be present. Thus, the privacy rights protected by requiring the police to announce their identity and their purpose include the occupant's right to put on a robe and to prevent the children from being frightened.''
Richards' attorney, in appealing to the Supreme Court, urged the justices to require police officers to show how the circumstances of each case justified their unannounced entry. The court is expected to rule by July.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB