OCTOBER TERM, 1996
Syllabus
RICHARDS
v. WISCONSIN
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN No. 96-5955. Argued
March 24, 1997-Decided April 28, 1997
In
Wilson v.
Arkansas, 514 U. S. 927, this Court
held that the Fourth Amendment incorporates the common-law
requirement that police knock on a dwelling's door and announce
their identity and purpose before attempting forcible entry,
recognized that the flexible reasonableness requirement should not
be read to mandate a rigid announcement rule that ignores
countervailing law enforcement interests,
id., at 934, and
left it to the lower courts to determine the circumstances under
which an unannounced entry is reasonable.
Id., at 936.
Officers in Madison, Wisconsin, obtained a warrant to search
petitioner Richards' motel room for drugs and related
paraphernalia, but the Magistrate refused to give advance
authorization for a "no-knock" entry. The officer who knocked on
Richards' door was dressed, and identified himself, as a
maintenance man. Upon opening the door, Richards also saw a
uniformed officer and quickly closed the door. The officers kicked
down the door, caught Richards trying to escape, and found cash and
cocaine in the bathroom. In denying Richards' motion to suppress
the evidence on the ground that the officers did not knock and
announce their presence before forcing entry, the trial court found
that they could gather from Richards' strange behavior that he
might try to destroy evidence or escape and that the drugs'
disposable nature further justified their decision not to knock and
announce. The State Supreme Court affirmed, concluding that
Wilson did not preclude the court's
pre-Wilson per se
rule that police officers are
never required to knock and
announce when executing a search warrant in a felony drug
investigation because of the special circumstances of today's drug
culture.
Held:
1. The Fourth Amendment does not permit a blanket exception to
the knock-and-announce requirement for felony drug investigations.
While the requirement can give way under circumstances presenting a
threat of physical violence or where officers believe that evidence
would be destroyed if advance notice were given, 514 U. S., at 936,
the fact that felony drug investigations may frequently present
such circumstances cannot remove from the neutral scrutiny of a
reviewing court the reasonableness of the police decision not to
knock and announce in a particular case. Creating exceptions to the
requirement based on the culture surrounding a general category of
criminal behavior presents at
386
Syllabus
least two serious concerns. First, the exception contains
considerable overgeneralization that would impermissibly insulate
from judicial review cases in which a drug investigation does not
pose special risks. Second, creating an exception in one category
can, relatively easily, be applied to others. If a
per se
exception were allowed for each criminal activity category that
included a considerable risk of danger to officers or destruction
of evidence, the knock-and-announce requirement would be
meaningless. The court confronted with the question in each case
has a duty to determine whether the facts and circumstances of the
particular entry justified dispensing with the requirement. A
"noknock" entry is justified when the police 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. This
standard strikes the appropriate balance between the legitimate law
enforcement concerns at issue in the execution of search warrants
and the individual privacy interests affected by no-knock entries.
Cf.
Maryland v.
Buie, 494 U. S. 325, 337.
Pp.391-395.
2. Because the evidence in this case establishes that the
decision not to knock and announce was a reasonable one under the
circumstances, the officers' entry into the motel room did not
violate the Fourth Amendment. That the Magistrate had originally
refused to issue a noknock warrant means only that at the time the
warrant was requested there was insufficient evidence for a
no-knock entry. However, the officers' decision to enter the room
must be evaluated as of the time of entry. Pp. 395-396.
201 Wis. 2d 845, 549 N. W. 2d 218, affirmed.
STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
David R. Karpe, by appointment of the Court, 519 U. S.
1106, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were
John Wesley Hall, Jr., Henry R. Schultz, and
Jack E.
Schairer.
James E. Doyle, Attorney General of Wisconsin, argued the
cause for respondent. With him on the brief was
Stephen W
Kleinmaier, Assistant Attorney General.
Miguel A. Estrada argued the cause for the United States as
amicus curiae urging affirmance. On the brief were Acting Solicitor
General Dellinger, Acting Assistant Attorney
387
General Richard, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, James A.
Feldman, and Deborah Watson.
*
JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.
In
Wilson v.
Arkansas, 514 U. S. 927 (1995), we
held that the Fourth Amendment incorporates the common-law
requirement that police officers entering a dwelling must knock on
the door and announce their identity and purpose before attempting
forcible entry. At the same time, we recognized that the "flexible
requirement of reasonableness should not be read to mandate a rigid
rule of announcement that ignores countervailing law enforcement
interests,"
id., at 934, and left "to the lower courts the
task of determining the circumstances under which an unannounced
entry is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,"
id., at
936.
In this case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court concluded that police
officers are
never required to knock and announce their
presence when executing a search warrant in a felony
*Tracey Maclin, Steven R. Shapiro, and
Lisa B.
Kemler filed a brieffor the American Civil Liberties Union et
al. as
amici curiae urging reversal.
Briefs of
amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the State of Ohio et al. by
Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney
General of Ohio,
Jeffrey S.
Sutton, State Solicitor,
Simon B. Karas, and
Diane R. Richards, and by the
Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows:
Bill Pryor of Alabama,
Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska,
Winston Bryant of Arkansas,
M. Jane Brady of
Delaware,
Robert A. Butterworth of Florida,
Gus F.
Diaz of Guam,
Alan G.
Lance of Idaho,
James
E. Ryan of Illinois,
Carla J. Stovall of
Kansas,
A. B. Chandler III of Kentucky,
Richard P.
Ieyoub of Louisiana,
J. Joseph Curran of
Maryland,
Frank J. Kelley of Michigan,
Mike
Moore of Mississippi,
Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana,
Don Stenberg of Nebraska,
Thomas J.
Miller of Iowa,
Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada,
Steven M. Houran of New Hampshire,
Peter Verniero of
New Jersey,
Tom Udall of New Mexico,
Jose Fuentes
Agostini of Puerto Rico,
Jeffrey B. Pine of Rhode
Island,
Charles Molony Condon of South Carolina,
Mark W
Barnett of South Dakota,
Jan Graham of Utah, and
James Gilmore III of Virginia; and for Americans for
Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al. by
Fred E. Inbau, Wayne
W Schmidt, James P. Manak, Richard M. Weintraub, and
Bernard J. Farber.
388
drug investigation. In so doing, it reaffirmed a
pre-Wilson holding and concluded that
Wilson did not
preclude this
per se rule. We disagree with the court's
conclusion that the Fourth Amendment permits a blanket exception to
the knock-and-announce requirement for this entire category of
criminal activity. But because the evidence presented to support
the officers' actions in this case establishes that the decision
not to knock and announce was a reasonable one under the
circumstances, we affirm the judgment of the Wisconsin court.
I
On December 31, 1991, police officers in Madison, Wisconsin,
obtained a warrant to search Steiney Richards' motel room for drugs
and related paraphernalia. The search warrant was the culmination
of an investigation that had uncovered substantial evidence that
Richards was one of several individuals dealing drugs out of hotel
rooms in Madison. The police requested a warrant that would have
given advance authorization for a "no-knock" entry into the motel
room, but the Magistrate explicitly deleted those portions of the
warrant. App. 7, 9.
The officers arrived at the motel room at 3:40 a.m. Officer
Pharo, dressed as a maintenance man, led the team. With him were
several plainclothes officers and at least one man in uniform.
Officer Pharo knocked on Richards' door and, responding to the
query from inside the room, stated that he was a maintenance man.
With the chain still on the door, Richards cracked it open.
Although there is some dispute as to what occurred next, Richards
acknowledges that when he opened the door he saw the man in uniform
standing behind Officer Pharo. Brief for Petitioner 6. He quickly
slammed the door closed and, after waiting two or three seconds,
the officers began kicking and ramming the door to gain entry to
the locked room. At trial, the officers testified that they
identified themselves as police while they were kicking the door
in. App. 40. When they finally did break
389
into the room, the officers caught Richards trying to escape
through the window. They also found cash and cocaine hidden in
plastic bags above the bathroom ceiling tiles.
Richards sought to have the evidence from his motel room
suppressed on the ground that the officers had failed to knock and
announce their presence prior to forcing entry into the room. The
trial court denied the motion, concluding that the officers could
gather from Richards' strange behavior when they first sought entry
that he knew they were police officers and that he might try to
destroy evidence or to escape.
Id., at 54. The judge
emphasized that the easily disposable nature of the drugs the
police were searching for further justified their decision to
identify themselves as they crossed the threshold instead of
announcing their presence before seeking entry.
Id., at 55.
Richards appealed the decision to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and
that court affirmed. 201 Wis. 2d 845, 549 N. W. 2d 218 (1996).
The Wisconsin Supreme Court did not delve into the events
underlying Richards' arrest in any detail, but accepted the
following facts: "[O]n December 31, 1991, police executed a search
warrant for the motel room of the defendant seeking evidence of the
felonious crime of Possession with Intent to Deliver a Controlled
Substance in violation of Wis. Stat. § 161.41(lm) (1991-92). They
did not knock and announce prior to their entry. Drugs were
seized."
Id., at 849, 549 N. W. 2d, at 220.
Assuming these facts, the court proceeded to consider whether
our decision in
Wilson required the court to abandon its
decision in
State v.
Stevens, 181 Wis. 2d 410, 511 N.
W. 2d 591 (1994), cert. denied, 515 U. S. 1102 (1995), which held
that "when the police have a search warrant, supported by probable
cause, to search a residence for evidence of delivery of drugs or
evidence of possession with intent to deliver drugs, they
necessarily have reasonable cause to believe exigent circumstances
exist" to justify a no-knock entry. 201 Wis. 2d, at 852, 549 N. W.
2d, at 221. The court concluded
390
that nothing in
Wilson's acknowledgment that the
knockand-announce rule was an element of the Fourth Amendment
"reasonableness" requirement would prohibit application of a
per
se exception to that rule in a category of cases. 201 Wis. 2d,
at 854-855, 549 N. W. 2d, at 220.
In reaching this conclusion, the Wisconsin court found it
reasonable-after considering criminal conduct surveys, newspaper
articles, and other judicial opinions-to assume that all felony
drug crimes will involve "an extremely high risk of serious if not
deadly injury to the police as well as the potential for the
disposal of drugs by the occupants prior to entry by the police."
Id., at 847-848,549 N. W. 2d, at 219. Notwithstanding its
acknowledgment that in "some cases, police officers will
undoubtedly decide that their safety, the safety of others, and the
effective execution of the warrant dictate that they knock and
announce,"
id., at 863, 549 N. W. 2d, at 225, the court
concluded that exigent circumstances justifying a no-knock entry
are always present in felony drug cases. Further, the court
reasoned that the violation of privacy that occurs when officers
who have a search warrant forcibly enter a residence without first
announcing their presence is minimal, given that the residents
would ultimately be without authority to refuse the police entry.
The principal intrusion on individual privacy interests in such a
situation, the court concluded, comes from the issuance of the
search warrant, not the manner in which it is executed.
Id.,
at 864-865, 549 N. W. 2d, at 226. Accordingly, the court determined
that police in Wisconsin do not need specific information about
dangerousness, or the possible destruction of drugs in a particular
case, in order to dispense with the knock-and-announce requirement
in felony drug cases.1
1 Several other state courts-in cases that predate our decision
in
Wilson-have adopted similar rules, concluding that simple
probable cause to search a home for narcotics always allows the
police to forgo the knockand-announce requirement. See,
e. g.,
People v.
Lujan, 484 P. 2d 1238, 1241 (Colo. 1971) (en
bane);
Henson v.
State, 236 Md. 519, 523-524, 204
A.
391
Justice Abrahamson concurred in the judgment because, in her
view, the facts found by the trial judge justified a no-knock
entry.
Id., at 866-868, 549 N. W. 2d, at 227. Specifically,
she noted that Richards' actions in slamming the door when he saw
the uniformed man standing behind Officer Pharo indicated that he
already knew that the people knocking on his door were police
officers. Under these circumstances, any further announcement of
their presence would have been a useless gesture.
Id., at
868-869, n. 3, 549 N. W. 2d, at 228, n. 3. While agreeing with the
outcome, Justice Abrahamson took issue with her colleagues'
affirmation of the blanket exception to the knock-and-announce
requirement in drug felony cases. She observed that the
constitutional reasonableness of a search has generally been a
matter left to the court, rather than to the officers who conducted
the search, and she objected to the creation of a blanket rule that
insulated searches in a particular category of crime from the
neutral oversight of a reviewing judge.
Id., at 868-875, 549
N. W. 2d, at 228-230.
II
We recognized in
Wilson that the knock-and-announce
requirement could give way "under circumstances presenting a threat
of physical violence," or "where police officers have reason to
believe that evidence would likely be destroyed if advance notice
were given." 514 U. S., at 936. It is indisputable that felony drug
investigations may frequently involve both of these circumstances.2
The question we must
2d 516, 519-520 (1964);
State v.
Loucks, 209 N. W.
2d 772, 777-778 (N. D. 1973). Cf.
People v.
De Lago,
16 N. Y. 2d 289, 292, 213 N. E. 2d 659, 661 (1965) (similar rule
for searches related to gambling operations), cert. denied, 383 U.
S. 963 (1966).
2 This Court has encountered before the links between drugs and
violence, see,
e. g., Michigan v.
Summers, 452 U. S. 692, 702
(1981), and the likelihood that drug dealers will attempt to
dispose of drugs before police seize them, see,
e. g., Ker
v.
California, 374 U. S. 23, 28, n. 3
(1963).
392
resolve is whether this fact justifies dispensing with
caseby-case evaluation of the manner in which a search was
executed.3
The Wisconsin court explained its blanket exception as
necessitated by the special circumstances of today's drug culture,
201 Wis. 2d, at 863-866, 549 N. W. 2d, at 226-227, and the State
asserted at oral argument that the blanket exception was reasonable
in "felony drug cases because of the convergence in a violent and
dangerous form of commerce of weapons and the destruction of
drugs." Tr. of Oral Arg. 26. But creating exceptions to the
knock-and-announce rule based on the "culture" surrounding a
general category of criminal behavior presents at least two serious
concerns.4
3 Although our decision in
Wilson did not address this
issue directly, it is instructive that in that case-which involved
a felony drug investigation-we remanded to the state court for
further factual development to determine whether the no-knock entry
was reasonable under the circumstances of the case. Two
amicus briefs in
Wilson suggested that we adopt just
the sort of
per se rule the Wisconsin court propounded here.
Brief for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, Inc., et al. as
Amici Curiae 10-11, Brief for Wayne County, Michigan, as
Amicus Curiae 3946, in
Wilson v.
Arkansas, O.
T. 1994, No. 5707. Although the respondent did not argue for a
categorical rule, the petitioner, in her reply brief, did address
the arguments put forward by the
amicus briefs, Reply Brief
for Petitioner in
Wilson v.
Arkansas, O. T. 1994, No.
5707, p. 11, and
amici supporting the petitioner also
presented arguments against a categorical rule. Brief for American
Civil Liberties Union et al. as
Amici Curiae in
Wilson v.
Arkansas, O. T. 1994, No. 5707, p. 29, n.
44. Thus, while the prospect of a categorical rule was one to which
we were alerted in
Wilson, we did not choose to adopt such a
rule at that time.
4 It is always somewhat dangerous to ground exceptions to
constitutional protections in the social norms of a given
historical moment. The purpose of the Fourth Amendment's
requirement of reasonableness "is to preserve that degree of
respect for the privacy of persons and the inviolability of their
property that existed when the provision was adopted-even if a
later, less virtuous age should become accustomed to considering
all sorts of intrusion 'reasonable.'''
Minnesota v.
Dickerson, 508
U. S. 366, 380 (1993) (SCALIA, J., concurring).
393
First, the exception contains considerable overgeneralization.
For example, while drug investigation frequently does pose special
risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence, not every
drug investigation will pose these risks to a substantial degree.
For example, a search could be conducted at a time when the only
individuals present in a residence have no connection with the drug
activity and thus will be unlikely to threaten officers or destroy
evidence. Or the police could know that the drugs being searched
for were of a type or in a location that made them impossible to
destroy quickly. In those situations, the asserted governmental
interests in preserving evidence and maintaining safety may not
outweigh the individual privacy interests intruded upon by a
no-knock entry. 5 Wisconsin's blanket rule impermissibly insulates
these cases from judicial review.
A second difficulty with permitting a criminal-category
exception to the knock-and-announce requirement is that the
5 The State asserts that the intrusion on individual interests
effectuated by a no-knock entry is minimal because the execution of
the warrant itself constitutes the primary intrusion on individual
privacy and that the individual privacy interest cannot outweigh
the generalized governmental interest in effective and safe law
enforcement. Brieffor Respondent 21-24. See also Brieffor United
States as
Amicus Curiae 16 ("occupants' privacy interest is
necessarily limited to the brief interval between the officers'
announcement and their entry"). While it is true that a no-knock
entry is less intrusive than, for example, a warrantless search,
the individual interests implicated by an unannounced, forcible
entry should not be unduly minimized. As we observed in
Wilson v.
Arkansas, 514 U. S. 927, 930-932
(1995), the common law recognized that individuals should be
provided the opportunity to comply with the law and to avoid the
destruction of property occasioned by a forcible entry. These
interests are not inconsequential.
Additionally, when police enter a residence without announcing
their presence, the residents are not given any opportunity to
prepare themselves for such an entry. The State pointed out at oral
argument that, in Wisconsin, most search warrants are executed
during the late night and early morning hours. Tr. of Oral Arg. 24.
The brief interlude between announcement and entry with a warrant
may be the opportunity that an individual has to pull on clothes or
get out of bed.
394
reasons for creating an exception in one category can,
relatively easily, be applied to others. Armed bank robbers, for
example, are, by definition, likely to have weapons, and the fruits
of their crime may be destroyed without too much difficulty. If a
per se exception were allowed for each category of criminal
investigation that included a considerable-albeit hypothetical-risk
of danger to officers or destruction of evidence, the
knock-and-announce element of the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness
requirement would be meaningless.
Thus, the fact that felony drug investigations may frequently
present circumstances warranting a no-knock entry cannot remove
from the neutral scrutiny of a reviewing court the reasonableness
of the police decision not to knock and announce in a particular
case. Instead, in each case, it is the duty of a court confronted
with the question to determine whether the facts and circumstances
of the particular entry justified dispensing with the
knock-and-announce requirement.
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. This
standard-as opposed to a probable-cause requirement-strikes the
appropriate balance between the legitimate law enforcement concerns
at issue in the execution of search warrants and the individual
privacy interests affected by no-knock entries. Cf.
Maryland
v.
Buie, 494
U. S. 325, 337 (1990) (allowing a protective sweep of a house
during an arrest where the officers have "a reasonable belief based
on specific and articulable facts that the area to be swept harbors
an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene");
Terry v.
Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 30 (1968)
(requiring a reasonable and articulable suspicion of danger to
justify a patdown search). This showing is not high, but the
police
395
should be required to make it whenever the reasonableness of a
no-knock entry is challenged.
III
Although we reject the Wisconsin court's blanket exception to
the knock-and-announce requirement, we conclude that the officers'
no-knock entry into Richards' motel room did not violate the Fourth
Amendment. We agree with the trial court, and with Justice
Abrahamson, that the circumstances in this case show that the
officers had a reasonable suspicion that Richards might destroy
evidence if given further opportunity to do SO.6
The judge who heard testimony at Richards' suppression hearing
concluded that it was reasonable for the officers executing the
warrant to believe that Richards knew, after opening the door to
his motel room the first time, that the men seeking entry to his
room were the police. App. 54. Once the officers reasonably
believed that Richards knew who they were, the court concluded, it
was reasonable for them to force entry immediately given the
disposable nature of the drugs.
Id., at 55.
In arguing that the officers' entry was unreasonable, Richards
places great emphasis on the fact that the Magistrate who signed
the search warrant for his motel room deleted the portions of the
proposed warrant that would have given the officers permission to
execute a no-knock entry. But this fact does not alter the
reasonableness of the officers' decision, which must be evaluated
as of the time they entered the motel room. At the time the
officers obtained the warrant, they did not have evidence
sufficient, in the judgment of the Magistrate, to justify a
no-knock warrant. Of course,
6We note that the attorneys general of 26 States, the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Territory of Guam filed an
amicus brief taking the position that the officers' decision
was reasonable under the specific facts of this case, but rejecting
Wisconsin's
per se rule. See Brief for Ohio et al. as
Amici Curiae.
396
the Magistrate could not have anticipated in every particular
the circumstances that would confront the officers when they
arrived at Richards' motel room.7 These actual
circumstances-petitioner's apparent recognition of the officers
combined with the easily disposable nature of the drugsjustified
the officers' ultimate decision to enter without first announcing
their presence and authority.
Accordingly, although we reject the blanket exception to the
knock-and-announce requirement for felony drug investigations, the
judgment of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
7 A number of States give magistrate judges the authority to
issue "noknock" warrants if the officers demonstrate ahead of time
a reasonable suspicion that entry without prior announcement will
be appropriate in a particular context. See,
e. g.,
725 Ill. Compo Stat., ch. 725, § 5/108-8 (1992); Neb. Rev. Stat.
§29-411 (1995); Okla. Stat., Tit. 22, § 1228 (Supp. 1997); S. D.
Codified Laws § 23A-35-9 (1988); Utah Code Ann. § 77-23-210 (1995).
But see
State V.
Arce, 83 Ore. App. 185, 730 P. 2d
1260 (1986) (magistrate has no authority to abrogate
knock-and-announce requirement);
State V.
Bamber, 630
So. 2d 1048 (Fla. 1994) (same).
The practice of allowing magistrates to issue no-knock warrants
seems entirely reasonable when sufficient cause to do so can be
demonstrated ahead of time. But, as the facts of this case
demonstrate, a magistrate's decision not to authorize a no-knock
entry should not be interpreted to remove the officers' authority
to exercise independent judgment concerning the wisdom of a
no-knock entry at the time the warrant is being executed.
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