HARTFORD, Conn. (April 22, 2021) – A Connecticut joint committee has passed a bill that would prohibit “no-knock” warrants and take a step toward nullifying several Supreme Court opinions in practice and effect.
The House Judiciary Committee and two Republicans introduced Senate Bill 1093 (SB1093) on March 25. The legislation would make several police reforms including banning no-knock warrants. Under the proposed law, law enforcement officers would be prohibited from seeking, executing, or participating in the execution of a no-knock warrant.
SB1093 defines a “no-knock warrant” as “a warrant authorizing police officers to enter certain premises without first knocking and announcing their presence or purpose prior to entering the place to be searched.”
A search warrant authorized under this section shall require that an officer provide notice of such officer’s identity, authority and purpose prior to entering the place to be searched for the execution of such search warrant. Prior to undertaking any search or seizure pursuant to the search warrant, the executing officer shall read and give a copy of the search warrant to the person to be searched or the owner of the place to be searched or, if the owner is not present, to any occupant of the place to be searched.
On April 6, the Joint Judiciary Committee passed SB1093 by a 32-6 vote with some technical amendments to clarify language.
SB1093 also includes provisions clarifying procedures for searches, body cam footage, and authorizes local government to create civilian review boards to oversee police actions.
Nullifying the Supreme Court
Passage of SB1093 would take a big step toward effectively nullifying and making irrelevant several Supreme Court opinions that give police across the U.S. legal cover for conducting no-knock raids.
In the 1995 case Wilson v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court established that police must peacefully knock, announce their presence, and allow time for the occupants to open the door before entering a home to serve a warrant. But the Court allowed for “exigent circumstance” exceptions if police fear violence, if the suspect is a flight risk, or if officers fear the suspect will destroy evidence.
As journalist Radley Balko notes, police utilized this exception to the fullest extent, “simply declaring in search warrant affidavits that all drug dealers are a threat to dispose of evidence, flee or assault the officers at the door.”
The SCOTUS eliminated this blanket exception in Richards v. Wisconsin (1997) requiring police to show why a specific individual is a threat to dispose of evidence, commit an act of violence or flee from police. But even with the opinion, the bar for obtaining a no-knock warrant remains low.
“In order to justify a ‘no-knock’ entry, the police must have a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile, or that it would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime by, for example, allowing the destruction of evidence.” [Emphasis added]
Reasonable suspicion is an extremely low legal bar to meet. Through this exception, police can justify no-knock entry on any warrant application. In effect, the parameters in the SCOTUS ruling make no-knock the norm instead of the exception.
A third Supreme Court ruling effectively eliminated the consequences for violating the “knock and announce” requirement even without a no-knock warrant. In Hudson v. Michigan (2006), the High Court held that evidence seized in violation of knock and announce was not subject to the exclusionary rule. In other words, police could still use the evidence in court even though they technically gathered it illegally.
Significantly, were it not for the dubious “incorporation doctrine” made up by the Supreme Crout based on the 14th Amendment that purportedly empowers the federal government to apply the Bill of Rights to the states, these cases would have never gone to federal court and we wouldn’t have these blanket rules.
Without specific restrictions from the state, police officers generally operate within the parameters set by the High Court. By passing restrictions on no-knock warrants, states set standards that go beyond the Supreme Court limits and in effect, nullify the SCOTUS opinion.
WHAT’S NEXT
SB1093 can now move to both the full House and Senate for further consideration.
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