Announcement in Police Entries
The Yale Law Journal · 1970
Announcement in Police EntriesTwo recently enacted federal statutes give police the power to enter dwellings unannounced to search and arrest.Such "no-knock" powers supersede the rule that law officers must pause at the threshold to request admittance and to state their identity and their purpose. 1Though a number of states permit no-knock entries in certain exceptional circumstances, 2 the first federally sponsored no-knock legislation was the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970. 3 In addition, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 provides no-knock search powers for federal narcotics agents operating nationwide. 4 This federal interest in no-knock legislation is significant not solely because District of Columbia police and federal narcotics agents will possess another investigative technique.The attention generated by federal approval of no-knock makes it likely that those states which already sanction such powers will use them more frequently and that other states will seriously consider passing their own no-knock statutes.Federal experience with no-knock in the narcotics field may also suggest systematic use of these powers in other areas of law enforcement.As the right of unannounced police entry is increasingly exercised, the Fourth Amendment rules of announcement will be invoked by those challenging the constitutionality of expanded no-knock powers.After examining the purposes announcement served at common law, this Note will develop a framework with which to identify those limited situations when, under the Fourth Amendment, announcement may reasonably be abrogated.This framework will be used to evaluate the recent federal no-knock legislation.These no-knock powers, it will be shown, are overbroad and, unless carefully restricted, seriously undermine the constitutional guarantees of the Fourth Amendment.1.This is the procedure that applies to most entrances.See pp.146-47 infra.There are qualifications to the rule, however.See pp.