High Court to Consider ‘No Knock’ Raids

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will decide whether police officers with a warrant to search for drugs can barge into a home without announcing themselves.

A ruling, due by July, should clarify whether police must always follow a “knock and announce” policy when entering a residence or if they can go in unannounced during drug raids.

In June, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld a state policy that allows police on drug raids to rush into residences unannounced.

Without the element of surprise, there is “an extremely high risk of serious if not deadly injury” to officers, the state justice said. In addition, there is “a potential for the disposal of the drugs.”

Some state courts have drawn the opposite conclusion, maintaining that surprise raids pose a higher risk of leading to violence.

Less than two years ago, the high court said “no knock” entries are generally forbidden by the ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures” provided by the Constitution’s 4th Amendment. In an opinion in Wilson vs. Arkansas, the court said states should follow a policy that requires police officers to announce themselves before barging into a residence. But it allowed lower courts to make an exception in special situations.

The Wisconsin court ruled all drug searches are such an exception.

The issue was raised on an appeal by a convicted cocaine dealer, Steiney Richards. Police in Madison, Wis., obtained a warrant to search his motel room and entered without knocking or announcing themselves.

They found cocaine, Richards pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. But he maintained that the no-knock search violated the 4th Amendment, and on Friday, the justices agreed to hear his appeal in Richards vs. Wisconsin, 96-5955. The case will be argued in April.

Meanwhile, the court also said it will rule on whether public employees can ever be suspended without pay prior to a hearing to consider accusations against them.

Generally, the Constitution requires that public employees be given a hearing before they are punished for some misconduct. But lawyers for some police departments, school districts, colleges and other public agencies say they must act quickly when an employee is accused of criminal wrongdoing or other misdeeds.

Officials at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania did just that when a campus police officer was arrested in a raid at a friend’s house. When the officer, Richard J. Homar, was charged with marijuana possession, school officials suspended him without pay. They later demoted him to groundskeeper even though the drug charges against him were dropped.

Homar sued university president James Gilbert for violating his rights, and the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in his favor. It concluded that suspending his pay was punishment that could not be taken prior to a hearing on the charges. State officials appealed, and the case will come before the high court as Gilbert vs. Homar, 96-651.