If a group of twelve ordinary people would regard a search as unreasonable, it almost certainly is.

Likewise, if such a group, informed of all the facts in a criminal case, would regard as excessive the punishment imposed by a judge, it almost certainly is.

If such a group, informed of the accuracy record of a prosecution witness in earlier cases, would regard him as unreliable, he almost certainly is.

Most generally, if knowing certain truthful information would cause a jury to acquit, any guilty verdict obtained by concealing that information is almost certainly unjust (even if the defendant committed the crime, there is no justice in framing even a guilty man).

Judges and lawyers like to complicate things, and to accumulate power. They want to pretend that the Constitution is some strange and bizarre mystical entity that can only be understood by members of an elite priesthood. People who try promote such a view are enemies of the Constitution.

The Constitution was written to be a relatively simple and straightforward document, comprehensible by any literate person. The Founding Fathers would be appalled at the notion that the question of ‘reasonableness’ should be answered by studying thousands of pages of excuses as to why something is reasonable, rather than by asking a jury to use common sense.

Nando, you’d have to demonstrate that child-pornographers are prone to violence when apprehended. Now, I’ve never heard of such a thing, but if you have a link to support this assertion, I’d appreciate it. If you don’t, I hope you can admit that there was no reason whatsoever for this type of raid.

I didn’t realize I had to go to law school to disagree with the Supreme Court.

Do you think Dred Scott was a good decision, too? Who are you to argue with those distinguished scholars who voted 7 to 2 against the citizenship of slaves?

And the ruling in Richards is a direct refutation of your your assertion that, “there is no way to prove that they are not a threat and violent, so you must treat them as being POSSIBLY a threat and violent.”

In Richards, the Court explicitly rejected the state of Wisconsin’s policy of allowing police officers to use no-knock entry for all narcotic warrants, stating instead that they must show “reasonable suspicion” of exigent circumstances.

The “reasonable suspicion” threshold is far too low for my taste, but it is by no means an instruction to police to assume all suspects could be violent.

I have no interest in being a hired thug, even for a day.

And, we don’t have proof that the person in the house ISN’T an immediate danger to the police or that he isn’t violent. There is no way to prove that they are not a threat and violent, so you must treat them as being POSSIBLY a threat and violent.

That isn’t the standard. The Supreme Court clearly says in Wilson that the police must show specific evidence that the suspect could become violent.

The problem is that the courts don’t scrutinize police claims of possible violence. It’s gotten to the point where having a legal gun permit is enough for a no-knock raid — a scary thought, given that (a) people who go to the trouble of obtaining a legal permit aren’t likely criminals, and (b) the same people are likely (and justified) to use their weapons against someone who breaks into their home at night.

Go back and re-read Wilson v. Arkansas. The Court explicitly said no-knocks are a violation of the Fourth Amendment, unless police can show exigent circumstances–either that the suspect is dangerous, or that he may dispose of evidence in the time it takes police to announce before entering.

I don’t know that either of those applies in this case.

#28 Matt Moore

Not when you think knocking down doors in the middle of the night, with no proof that anyone is in immediate danger, much less proof that the “criminal” in question is violent, is an “inconvenience.” Nope, I can’t respect that.

The thing is, we DON’T KNOW if they had proof or not. You’re assuming that they didn’t. And, we don’t have proof that the person in the house ISN’T an immediate danger to the police or that he isn’t violent. There is no way to prove that they are not a threat and violent, so you must treat them as being POSSIBLY a threat and violent.

If you can’t respect that, then I suggest you put on a uniform and go out and do the Police’s job for a day. Just one day. You never know when the next person you pull over for running a stop sign or that you try to arrest for missing his child support payments is going to pull out a gun and shoot you. Everyone must be approached with caution and suspicion, less you don’t care about your own life.

Not when you think knocking down doors in the middle of the night, with no proof that anyone is in immediate danger, much less proof that the “criminal” in question is violent, is an “inconvenience.” Nope, I can’t respect that.

So no knock raids? They’re both stupid and a violation of the 4th amendment.

2. By your rationale, shouldn’t police use SWAT for any and all warrant service, no matter the charge? I mean, people naturally want to stay out of jail, so better safe than sorry, right?

It’s been documented, on this site, that there are jurisdictions where this is exactly the case. No matter what the warrant, they roll the SWAT team.

I know you were trying to be absurd, but the government beat you.

There are intelligent arguments on both sides of the issue. I agree with Radley (and other libertarians) on many issues, maybe even 75% of the issues, but I do not agree with them on this one. I don’t think no-knock raids should be an everyday thing, but they do have their place and time. They should be used in situations where the probability of encountering force is high. I’d say that a child pornographer (who clearly doesn’t have a mainstream or normal way of thinking) is a risk high enough to warrant these types of raids.

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “no-knock” entry into a building where a suspect is thought to be hiding is acceptable if the officers have reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence would be “dangerous or futile,” (see Richards v. Wisconsin and United States v. Ramirez).

There are great arguments on both sides. Can’t we just respect each other’s position?

If the police break into someone’s house in such fashion as to deliberately deny the occupants any opportunity to assess the situation and determine that they are in fact police officers, the occupants cannot be blamed for not determining that the invaders are cops.

No-knock raids may be more exciting than milder tactics for the people involved. Given the level of danger they pose to everyone involved, however, they are grossly unreasonable in any but the most dire circumstances (e.g. hostage rescue).

In addition to the direct rangers, no-knock raids impose an indirect danger of a type which would only exist in a tyrannical regime: the greater the risk of an innocent homeowner being invaded by government agents, the greater the danger that a homeowner can be disarmed by bandits who yell “police”. If real police only used such tactics a few times per year, nationwide, a homeowner could safely assume that anyone who broke into his house was a robber regardless of whether the person yelled “police”. Robbers would thus know that they couldn’t use such tactics without getting shot. If, however, one is as likely to be raided by the police as by robbers, that gives robbers a green light for how to safely disarm their victims.

The 4th Amendment protects us from “unreasonable” searches and seizures. In essence, the governments interest in searching and/or seizing you will dictate the level at and and with which it can do the same. In detemrining reasonableness, courts have said it’s not just in terms of whether or not you are searched or seized but the severity and scope of the actual search or seizure.
A no knock raid is a search of the home as well as a seizure of everyone in the home. It is a violent and incredibly intrusive method, and by not involving a knock, it desecrates the sanctity of that individual home and the person’s rights to be private within it (even though a knock may just be a formality, it is significant in that respect).

Without getting into whether these severe methods were justified by the government’s interest (though I don’t think that’s really open to much debate), your (apparent) assertion that a no-knock raid can not be a civil rights violation when compared to a traditionally executed warrant is just wrong. Unless you would argue that violating someone’s 4th Amendment rights is not necessarily a civil rights violation, which I suppose you could argue. Though I would submit it is, per se.

1. “Child molesters don’t do well in prison” is a myth. Plain and simple.

2. By your rationale, shouldn’t police use SWAT for any and all warrant service, no matter the charge? I mean, people naturally want to stay out of jail, so better safe than sorry, right?

3. If you’re using the “element of surprise”, doesn’t that justify people opening fire on raiding officers, since they have no way to know in the moment that they are raiding officers?

If there is no danger to life, or limb to anyone including the “pigs” that perform these actions they should not be used. This includes the possibility of lost evidence, because more often then not the evidence can’t be gotten rid of as easily as many think.

Lets look at it like this: The Walmart employee reported to the police that he either had, or saw nude photos of a child (thats cool report it, I would also). Now we have two scenarios to work with.

1. The cops have photos so they do not need to bust into the suspects home, for evidence.

2. They have the word of some person that is working at the local Walmart, and they need evidence. First they need to look at the employee, and find out who he is, does he know the suspect, does he have mental problems, has he made false accusations before, does he have a grudge against the suspect, make sure he is on the up and up. Next stake out the suspects house, go through his garbage, talk to his friends to find out about him, get a warrant for his camera, and computer, do some investigating (investigating is what cops are supposed to do). In this situation they find some evidence or they do not.

If they do find evidence then arrest him on his way to work, so that you do not endanger his innocent children.
If they do not find evidence then move onto real crimes.

In both situations SWAT was not needed, no civil rights were abused, and danger to all was reduced.

One thing from the story is confirmed though, the suspect was never arrested, and this is big, because if there was even a piece of crap that could be used as evidence he would have been.