Nash,
Both articles weree cited in my reply because you are focused on the "no knock ruling" as termed by the press. In each of those caes there was no knock, both went to the Supreme Court and were heard in the current term. Does that clear it up for you? You also did not specify the particular case in your troll. I tried to clear it up, if that offends you, tough. I wanted to insure I was discussing the pertinant case.
In this case we still do not even have the extract of the ruling so it is difficult to determine the scope of the impact as there is no specific judgement to read. All we have is some discussion by reporters in the article and some, but not complete quotes. Don't rush to judgement on the impact just yet.
Lets look at the case in question.
The error cited by the defendants attorney was one of no knock and less than 15 seconds at the door. There is no finding that there was no announcement of presence and intent to enter by the Police. There also was no disagreement on the presence of a search warrant.
There has been no citing of the definition of a "reasonable time" to wait in this case. Absent that, it's hard to argue what the court has determined is "reasonable". The article lists one statement that the court has ruled in the past that a period of 15 to 20 seconds is required but no case was cited for confirmation or if that ruling was not just specific to the case in which it was made.
What has been cited in this particular case is that the Court allowed evidence in this case to be used for probitive purposes even though the knock and time period were not used. There was definately an announcement however.
Another statement was made that the legislature is certainly able to make a law (as opposed to a court ruling having the effect of law) specifying the procedures to be followed regarding serving a warrant. I think this is a good idea as it may be able to clearly codify the procedure rather than have ambiguous terms like "reasonable period of time".
What has been stated in the article is justification for the lack of a lengthy time period which would allow the defendant time to either dispose of evidence or prepare to use violence in resisting the serving of the warrant. There is no "right" to use force or violence to resist the serving of a warrant.
This is another of those areas that could be ambiguous as circumstances dictate what is reasonable at one time may not be at another. If you have an armed and dangerous suspect engaged in criminal activity involving objects that are easy to dispose of (ie drugs) or are extremely hazardous (explosives, chemicals or drug labs) the reasonableness of a lengthy wait is less easy to see. On the other hand if you are executing a warrant on a to date non violent fraud suspect and looking for records, a longer time is not unreasonable. It's tough to determine one standard that will apply to all situations and may well be impossible.
In any case I did not see anything that indicated there was no longer any requirement to announce prior to or at entry. Just that the time period or that a knock is not the determining factor in exclusion of evidence. Like I said before, wait for the entire ruling to be published before you consider everything has changed.
Nash in answer to your inflamatory question: No it is not legal to shoot a cop serving a warrant.
As has already been mentioned there is a lot of shouting "Police - Search Warant" at the moment of and after entry. Ear plugs do not render a person deaf as anyone who has worn them at a firearms range can attest to. Using that arguement is specious and reaching at best. Shouts are easily heard through them.
It is encumbant on the homeowner to make sure of his / her target before firing in all cases and that does not change in the case of a warrant being served. If you hear shouting "Police - search warrant" firing at those folks will likely end up in receiving heavy return fire from armored and better armed Officers.
Having been on a couple entries as the lead Officer through the door it is rather important to know that every Officer is keenly desious to insure there is NO confusion as to their identity as Officers and there is no shooting or violence if at all possible. Fortunately it is no longer commonly necessary to just get a regular uniformed Officer to enter the door first. Most departments of any size use a swat team with good equipment to make the entry. It is not a fun thing to do.
