So a few days ago I posted about how in Indy the state SCJ decided it was illegal to resist police entering your residence without a warrant. And I commented about how I wasn’t moving to Indiana anytime soon.
Yah, so in today’s news I see this:
The high court case tested the reach of the Fourth Amendment guarantee that police enter a home only when they have grounds to suspect wrongdoing and get a warrant from a judge. A key exception — at issue here — arises when police believe evidence is being destroyed or some other emergency is underway……..The question for the Supreme Court was whether police may enter a home based on those “exigent,” or urgent, circumstances if officers have essentially created those circumstances, for example, by causing occupants to panic and try to destroy drug evidence by flushing it down a toilet…………….Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said police act properly if they “do not gain entry to premises by means of an actual or threatened violation of the Fourth Amendment.” Alito stressed that residents do not have to open their door to police, but if they generate suspicious noises inside, they create grounds for officers to enter……….Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame for the warrantless exigent-circumstances search that may ensue.”…………Dissenting alone in Kentucky v. King, Ginsburg wrote, “In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, nevermind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.”
So basically the police knock on my door, announce they’re the police, and then hear a noise they deem (in their professional opinion) to be suspicious they now have grounds for breaking and entering. Regardless of whether or not I was actually DOING anything illegal. Yah, I have a problem with that.