In the United States, a no-knock warrant is a warrant issued by a judge that allows law enforcement officers to enter a property without immediate prior notification of the residents, such as by knocking or ringing a doorbell. In most cases, law enforcement will identify themselves just before they forcefully enter the property. It is issued under the belief that any evidence they hope to find can be destroyed during the time that police identify themselves and the time they secure the area, or in the event where there is a large perceived threat to officer safety during the execution of the warrant.
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Legal authority
English common law has required law enforcement to knock-and-announce since at least Semayne's case (1604), and in Miller v. United States (1958), the Supreme Court of the United States recognized that police must give notice before making a forced entry. However, in Wilson v. Arkansas (1995) the Court created an exception to prevent the destruction of evidence and in Hudson v. Michigan (2006) the Court, by a 5-4 vote, held the exclusionary rule does not require the suppression of evidence police seize during an illegal forced entry.
According to the United States Department of Justice:
Federal judges and magistrates may lawfully and constitutionally issue "no-knock" warrants where circumstances justify a no-knock entry, and federal law enforcement officers may lawfully apply for such warrants under such circumstances. Although officers need not take affirmative steps to make an independent re-verification of the circumstances already recognized by a magistrate in issuing a no-knock warrant, such a warrant does not entitle officers to disregard reliable information clearly negating the existence of exigent circumstances when they actually receive such information before execution of the warrant.
Oregon state law bans no-knock warrants. In 1994, the Supreme Court of Florida prohibited no-knock warrants. 13 states have laws explicitly authorizing no-knock warrants and in twenty additional states no-knock warrants are routinely granted.
Statistics
The number of no-knock raids has increased from 3,000 in 1981 to more than 50,000 in 2005, according to Peter Kraska, a criminologist at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. Raids that lead to deaths of innocent people are increasingly common; since the early 1980s, forty bystanders have been killed, according to the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
In Utah, no-knock warrants make up about 40% of all warrants served. In Maryland, 90% of SWAT deployments were to serve search warrants, with two-thirds through forced entry.
From 2010 through 2016, at least 81 civilians and 13 officers died during SWAT raids, including 31 civilians and eight officers during execution of no-knock warrants. Half of the civilians killed were members of a minority. Of those subject to SWAT search warrants, 42% are black and 12% are Hispanic. Since 2011, at least seven federal lawsuits against officers executing no-knock warrants have been settled for over $1 million.
Controversy
No-knock warrants have been controversial for various reasons. Some consider them to be unconstitutional. In addition, there have been cases where burglars have robbed homes by pretending to be officers with a no-knock warrant. There have been many cases where armed homeowners, believing that they are being invaded, have shot at officers, resulting in deaths on both sides. While it is legal to shoot a homeowner's dog when an officer fears for his/her life, there have been numerous high-profile cases in which family pets lacking the size, strength, or demeanor to attack officers have been shot, greatly increasing the risk of additional casualties in neighboring houses via overpenetrating bullets.
Police and prosecutors are criticized for the use of no-knock search warrants. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution assures and protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. Police, civil libertarians, and/or criminals may interpret the phrase “unreasonable searches and seizures” in different ways. Police view unreasonable searches and seizures as entering a home or property without obtaining what is deemed as probable cause. Probable cause is based on the officer having reason to believe a crime has been committed or exigent circumstances defined in United States v. McConney: Emergency conditions. "Those circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry (or other relevant prompt action) was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of a suspect, or some other consequence improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement efforts."
Phonesavanh case
In Cornelia, Georgia, a police informant alleged that he had bought $50 of methamphetamine from Wanis Thonetheva, a 30-year-old dealer at a residence belonging to Amanda Thonetheva, his mother. The dealer did not reside at the house, which contained no drugs or weapons, though a family with four young children lived in the house. Sheriff’s Deputy Nikki Autry secured a no-knock warrant after awaking a county magistrate at his home and making inaccurate sworn statements to him.
Police executed a no-knock, pre-dawn raid at 2:25am, with a SWAT team breaching a door with a ram and throwing a flash-bang stun grenade into a room with a 19 month old child. The grenade exploded inside the infant's crib, igniting the crib and his pillow, causing "blast burn injuries to the face and chest; a complex laceration of the nose, upper lip and face; 20% of the right upper lip missing; the external nose being separated from the underlying bone; and a large avulsion burn injury to the chest with a resulting left pulmonary contusion and sepsis"
The infant was placed in a medically induced coma, and needed a series of surgeries that cost more than a million dollars, becoming the subject of a lawsuit against the police department to pay medical bills. The legal case argued that children's toys, including a plastic child's pool were in the yard and the packaging for the play-pen the infant was sleeping in was next to the door the police breached, and the lawsuit alleges that police are "plainly incompetent" for failing to know that children were in the room.
The search yielded no drugs, no drug dealer and no weapons, and the drug dealer was arrested the next day without the use of flash-bang grenades.
The civil lawsuit was eventually settled, with the county paying $3.6 million, including approximately $1.65 million in pain and suffering. A Habersham County, Georgia grand jury declined to indict any of the participants, but did release a strongly worded report. Federal prosecutors then secured an indictment against Deputy Autry. She was acquitted of any wrongdoing by a federal jury after a weeklong trial.