Police don't have to knock, CNN article

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I read the fucking decision, already.
Are you telling me that in this ruling, by seriously weakening the "exclusionary rule" they didn't remove the primary impediment to obeying the "knock and announce rule? You aren't naive enough to buy that, are you?

I'm just not naive enough to buy your assertion that that is what has happened here.

The cops, bearing a warrant, announced themselves and entered through an unlocked door after waiting three to five seconds. If failing to follow inevitable discovery of the gun and drugs in this case is really "serious weakening of the exclusionary rule", then the exclusionary rule really needed some serious weakening.

(Your stories about belongings being tossed for a search don't strike me as relevant to the issue at hand. But as long as you're dispensing anecdotes, here's one: I thought the exclusionary rule needed weakening when burglars made off with the sacramental silver of the church where my father was pastor, burning the church to the ground to cover the crime. One of the perps was stopped for a traffic violation blocks from the scene the next day. The silver, with the name of the church engraved on it, was on the seat of the car. But the perp walked because a city judge applied the exclusionary rule to the discovery of the stolen goods. They actually did get some of the silver back, but the church is gone forever, and the perps got off scot-free.)

Alito makes reference to lawsuits, training and professionalism in the context of refuting Hudson's claim that massive deterrance is required because it is the only remedy for defective knock-and-announce. It isn't.

Here's that part of the opinion in context:

Originally Posted by Alito, for the majority

(b) This Court has rejected “[i]ndiscriminate application” of the exclusionary rule, United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 908, holding it applicable only “where its deterrence benefits outweigh its ‘substantial social costs,’ ” Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524 U. S. 357, 363. Exclusion may not be premised on the mere fact that a constitutional violation was a “but-for” cause of obtaining the evidence. The illegal entry here was not the but-for cause, but even if it were, but-for causation can be too attenuated to justify exclusion. Attenuation can occur not only when the causal connection is remote, but also when suppression would not serve the interest protected bythe constitutional guarantee violated. The interests protected by the knock-and-announce rule include human life and limb (because an unannounced entry may provoke violence from a surprised resident), property (because citizens presumably would open the door upon an announcement, whereas a forcible entry may destroy it), and privacy and dignity of the sort that can be offended by a sudden entrance. But the rule has never protected one’s interest in preventing the government from seeing or taking evidence described in a warrant. Since the interests violated here have nothing to do with the seizure of the evidence, the exclusionary rule is inapplicable.

(c) The social costs to be weighed against deterrence are considerable here. In addition to the grave adverse consequence that excluding relevant incriminating evidence always entails—the risk of releasing dangerous criminals—imposing such a massive remedy would generate a constant flood of alleged failures to observe the rule, and claims that any asserted justification for a no-knock entry had inadequate support. Another consequence would be police officers’ refraining from timely entry after knocking and announcing, producing preventable violence against the officers in some cases, and the destruction of evidence in others. Next to these social costs are the deterrence benefits. The value of deterrence depends on the strength of the incentive to commit the forbidden act. That incentive is minimal here, where ignoring knock-and-announce can realistically be expected to achieve nothing but the prevention of evidence destruction and avoidance of life-threatening resistance, dangers which suspend the requirement when there is “reasonable suspicion” that they exist, (Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U. S. 385, 394). Massive deterrence is hardly necessary. Contrary to Hudson’s argument that without suppression there will be no deterrence, many forms of police misconduct are deterred by civil-rights suits, and by the consequences of increasing professionalism of police forces, including a new emphasis on internal police discipline.

This opinion "seriously weaknens the excusionary rule" only if the rule started off being the only consideration in the case of an arguably defective knock-and-announce. It wasn't before the ruling (see the cites), and it isn't now. Nor have either the exclusionary rule or knock-and-announce been overturned. It's just that the claim of a defective knock and announce is not a free-ride to exclude all the evidence that the search allowed by the warrant turns up.