Justices OK some warrantless searches

WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court by an 8-1 vote Monday bolstered police authority to break down a door and seize drugs or other evidence of wrongdoing if officers believe it is being destroyed.

The majority upheld the forced, warrantless entry of a Lexington, Ky., apartment that occurred after police, chasing a suspected drug dealer into a breezeway, focused on an apartment unit because of the smell of marijuana and noises coming from inside. Officers kicked in the door, saying later they believed people were trying to get rid of evidence.

Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, asserting that the majority "today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases."

Officers had entered the breezeway looking for a man who sold crack cocaine to an undercover informant and then fled. Police heard a door slam, but did not know which of two units the suspected dealer had entered. A marijuana odor was coming from one of the doors.

They knocked on that door, announced they were the police, and, hearing noises, broke down the door. They found Hollis King, defendant in Monday's case, and two other people inside with marijuana and cocaine. (The dealer police had chased was in another apartment.)

By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY The ruling tests the 4th Amendment, says Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Monday's case tested the reach of the Fourth Amendment rule that police enter a home only when they have grounds to suspect wrongdoing and have obtained 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 was whether police may enter based on 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.

The Kentucky Supreme Court had ruled that the drug evidence should not have been used against King because the urgent situation police cited was of their making. The state court said officers would have known that their actions at the door would lead to noise and commotion inside.

Reversing that decision Monday, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority that as long as police do not create the urgent circumstances by threatening to barge in without grounds, officers have met the Fourth Amendment rule. Alito said officers should not vow to break down the door if the occupants fail to voluntarily open up, and he stressed that people do not have to open their door to police who do not have a warrant.

"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," Alito wrote, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Dissenting 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."