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Supreme Court justicces define time allowance for serving warrants
In a unanimous decision, U.S. Supreme Court Justices said Tuesday police officers must wait 20 seconds before entering the home of a drug suspect.
LaShawn Banks was in the shower in his Las Vegas home when masked, heavily armed police officers entered his home searching for cocaine.
They found 11 ounces of cocaine and three guns. Banks pled guilty to the charges against him and was sentenced to prison time.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said police who waited only 20 seconds were wrong to assume Banks would not open the door. They threw out his conviction and 11-year sentence.
After appealing the ruling, the U.S. Justice Department was given an opportunity to clarify how long an officer has to wait before entering someone's home to serve a warrant.
Capt. Todd Sigler of the SIUC Police Department said he did not fault the actions of the North Las Vegas police officers.
"In this case, the guy is in the shower and as the opinion states, the police have no way of knowing that," Sigler said. "As an officer, it would be incumbent upon me to make an allowance for that. But I have no knowledge of that, and in this case, they didn't either. They waited what was perceived to be a reasonable period of time. They did their job."
Both Sigler and Carbondale Police Department Interim Chief Steve Odum said they do not expect to see major changes in the way their departments conduct search warrants.
Sigler said his department does not deal with these cases often because of the environment his officers work in.
In 2002, SIUC Police made 105 drug possession arrests and 16 drug distribution arrests. Sigler said some of the arrests were made during traffic stops, while the majority of the others were residence hall related.
"Often times, we can knock and speak to the student resident," he said. "We don't have situations where there is danger behind the door, not to say there couldn't be, but most of the time, we're able to resolve these issues by just knocking on the door.
Sigler said although the SIUC Police has entry teams, they have not had to use them yet. Since residence halls are under University rules and regulations, the police department has more access to rooms than a municipal or state department would.
"If we feel someone's life is in jeopardy or there's an emergency situation that necessitates us keying in and opening the door ourselves, we can do that," Sigler said.
Odum said the amount of time an officer waits to enter a home depends on a number of different factors, including the officer's safety and what the search warrant is for. Although this instance is rare, he said judges sometimes issue no-knock warrants, where officers do not have to wait before entering the home.
"If the evidence you're searching for can be easily destroyed or concealed, you can't wait to enter," Odum said. "You have to consider whether the person inside might be armed or could they be arming themselves while you're waiting to go inside. These are the types of things that may affect how you approach and knock."
Odum said that in a case where suspects have large amounts of drugs, officers know they cannot flush the drugs quickly, but they still do not want them to flush anything at all.
In the past, most officers knocked and announced themselves to avoid violating the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.
Both Sigler and Odum said they will follow the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Police need to operate on the basis of you don't knock and announce in a whisper, instead, you knock and announce in a fashion or manner that you would reasonably expect someone to respond," Sigler said.
