Richards v. Wisconsin @ DrugPolicyCases.com

STEINEY RICHARDS, PETITIONER v. WISCONSIN
No. 96-5955
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
520 U.S. 385; 117 S. Ct. 1416; 137 L. Ed. 2d 615; 1997 U.S. LEXIS 2794; 65 U.S.L.W. 4283; 97 Cal. Daily Op. Service 3041; 97 Daily Journal DAR 5324; 10 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 422
March 24, 1997, Argued
April 28, 1997, Decided
PRIOR HISTORY: ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN.

In Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 131 L. Ed. 2d 976, 115 S. Ct. 1914, this Court held that the Fourth Amendment incorporates the common-law requirement that police knock on a dwelling's door and announce their identity and purpose before attempting forcible entry, recognized that the flexible reasonableness requirement should not be read to mandate a rigid announcement rule that ignores countervailing law enforcement interests, and left it to the lower courts to determine the circumstances under which an unannounced entry is reasonable. Officers in Madison, Wisconsin obtained a warrant to search petitioner Richards' hotel room for drugs and related paraphernalia, but the magistrate refused to give advance authorization for a "no-knock" entry. The officer who knocked on Richards' door was dressed, and identified himself, as a maintenance man. Upon opening the door, Richards also saw a uniformed officer and quickly closed the door. The officers kicked down the door, caught Richards trying to escape, and found cash and cocaine in the bathroom. In denying Richards' motion to suppress the evidence on the ground that the officers did not knock and announce their presence before forcing entry, the trial court found that they could gather from Richards' strange behavior that he might try to destroy evidence or escape and that the drugs' disposable nature further justified their decision not to knock and announce. The State Supreme Court affirmed, concluding that Wilson did not preclude the court's pre-Wilson per se rule that police officers are never required to knock and announce when executing a search warrant in a felony drug investigation because of the special circumstances of today's drug culture.

1. The Fourth Amendment does not permit a blanket exception to the knock-and-announce requirement for felony drug investigations. While the requirement can give way under circumstances presenting a threat of physical violence or where officers believe that evidence would be destroyed if advance notice were given, the fact that felony drug investigations may frequently present such circumstances cannot remove from the neutral scrutiny of a reviewing court the reasonableness of the police decision not to knock and announce in a particular case. [...]

2. Because the evidence in this case establishes that the decision not to knock and announce was a reasonable one under the circumstances, the officers' entry into the hotel room did not violate the Fourth Amendment. That the magistrate had originally refused to issue a no-knock warrant means only that at the time the warrant was requested there was insufficient evidence for a no-knock entry. However, the officers' decision to enter the room must be evaluated as of the time of entry.

In this case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded that police officers are never required to knock and announce their presence when executing a search warrant in a felony drug investigation. [...] We disagree with the court's conclusion that the Fourth Amendment permits a blanket exception to the knock-and-announce requirement for this entire category of criminal activity.

We recognized in Wilson that the knock-and-announce requirement could give way "under circumstances presenting a threat of physical violence," or "where police officers have reason to believe that evidence would likely be destroyed if advance notice were given." 514 U.S. at 936. It is indisputable that felony drug investigations may frequently involve both of these circumstances.

This Court has encountered before the links between drugs and violence, see, e.g., Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 702, 69 L. Ed. 2d 340, 101 S. Ct. 2587 (1981), and the likelihood that drug dealers will attempt to dispose of drugs before police seize them, see, e.g., Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 28, n. 3, 10 L. Ed. 2d 726, 83 S. Ct. 1623 (1963).

The Wisconsin court explained its blanket exception as necessitated by the special circumstances of today's drug culture, 201 Wis. 2d at 863-866, 549 N.W.2d at 226-227, and the State asserted at oral argument that the blanket exception was reasonable in "felony drug cases because of the convergence in a violent and dangerous form of commerce of weapons and the destruction of drugs." Tr. of Oral Arg. 26. But creating exceptions to the knock-and-announce rule based on the "culture" surrounding a general category of criminal behavior presents [...] serious concerns.

...[W]hile drug investigation frequently does pose special risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence, not every drug investigation will pose these risks to a substantial degree.

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