Breakdown was unfortunately predictable. Souter, Ginsberg, and Stevens joined in Breyer’s dissent. Scalia wrote the opinion, joined by Thomas, Roberts, and Alito. Kennedy filed a concurring opinion.

I’m reading the dissent. Noteworthy discussion on a lack of remedies other than the exclusionary rule:

The cases reporting knock-and-announce violations are legion. Indeed, these cases of reported violations seem sufficiently frequent and serious as to indicate “a widespread pattern.” Yet the majority, like Michigan and the United States, has failed to cite a single reported case in which a plaintiff has collected more than nominal damages solely as a result of a knock-and-announce violation. Even Michigan concedes that, “in cases like the present one . . ., damages may be virtually non-existent. And Michigan’s amici further concede that civil immunities prevent tort law from being an effective substitute for the exclusionary rule at this time.

As Justice Stewart, the author of a number of significant Fourth Amendment opinions, explained, the deterrent effect of damage actions “can hardly be said to be great,” as such actions are “expensive, time-consuming, not readily-available, and rarely sucessful.”

[...]

Rather, the majority, as it candidly admits, has simply “assumed” that “as far as it knows, civil liability is an effective deterrent.

Bullshit, of course. The only time a suspect wins a civil liability case when police violate the knock-and-announce rule is when they have very clearly screwed up, i.e. gotten the wrong address, or killed someone. And even then, it’s rare.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 11:52 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.